Preamble

The House met at Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

UNEMPLOYMENT (TRANSITIONAL PAYMENTS).

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: I have been requested by certain of my constituents to ask the leave of the House to present a petition signed by 10,000 workers of the Ferndale district of East Rhondda against the Means Test. The petition opens:
To the honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The humble petition of the undersigned members of the working classes of the Ferndale district of East Rhondda sheweth:
The petition states seven grounds against the Means Test, but I will enumerate only three of them. The first is:
That the Means Test as applied by the Government to large numbers of men and women of this district is operating in an extremely harsh manner by depriving them of unemployment benefit.
The second is:
It is proving destructive of family life, driving sons and daughters from the homes of their parents, and disturbing those filial relationships which have been the characteristics of Welsh Christian households for generations in the past.
The third is:
Numbers are finding it less and less possible to meet the rent charges of their landlords, and the courts are crowded with people under threat of being rendered homeless, especially in this district as it has for a long time past been a necessitous area.
I content myself with enumerating those three grounds. There are four other grounds, and the petition concludes by saying:
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will suspend without delay the operation of an Act which is devastating in its effect upon the lives and well-being of the British people.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS).

Ordered,
That every Private Bill or Bill to confirm a Provisional Order which involves, or in respect of which there has been promised, a grant from any Government Department shall, on presentation to the House, have bound with it a printed statement in the form of a Financial Memorandum showing the amount of such grant.

Ordered,
That this Order be a Standing Order of the House."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions — PRUSSIA (JEWS).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any information as to whether the resolution adopted by the Prussian Parliament to confiscate the property of East European Jews will affect those East European Jews who are British citizens; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take in the matter?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): The right hon. Gentleman presumably refers to a resolution which was passed by the Prussian Diet on the 24th of June, favouring, amongst other measures, the confiscation of the property of East European Jews who have immigrated into Prussia since the outbreak of war. I understand that there is little or no chance of any measure in this sense receiving the force of law.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISARMAMENT (SAVINGS).

Mr. MANDER: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the estimated annual financial saving to this country in respect of the years 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1936, firstly, if the Government's disarmament proposals are adopted unchanged and, secondly, if the Hoover proposals are adopted unchanged?

Sir J. SIMON: As the Lord President of the Council informed my hon. Friend on the 11th July, it is not possible, on the information available, to make any reliable estimates of the savings imme-
diate and prospective which would be realised if the proposals of His Majesty's Government were adopted; and the same arguments apply to the proposals of President Hoover.

Mr. MANDER: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen a calculation that by the end of 1936 the Hoover proposals will save £42,000,000, compared with £20,000,000 for our proposals, and can he make any comment on those figures as to their accuracy?

Sir J. SIMON: I heard my hon. Friend yesterday refer to a letter which contained that calculation, and naturally I listened to him most carefully, but, as I have already said, it is not possible to make any reliable estimate.

Miss RATHBONE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider issuing a statement showing the cost of the two sets of proposals in such a way as it is possible to foreshadow policy in assuming that in some respects it will be possible and in others it will not?

Sir J. SIMON: I hope that the hon. Lady will agree with the suggestion that I made last night that it is much better not to regard these two sets of proposals as cast-iron proposals. We are meeting at Geneva in an effort to reach agreement.

Miss RATHBONE: 15.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what would be the approximate annual saving in maintenance costs if one-third of the capital ships now in commission were scrapped in accordance with the Hoover proposals?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lord Stanley): Assuming that it were practicable to scrap one-third of the capital ships which we now possess, the ultimate annual saving for maintenance would amount, approximately, to £1,305,000. Some of this saving, however, would not accrue for several years until the personnel rendered surplus by such scrapping had been absorbed in the personnel requirements of the reduced fleet. I would refer the hon. Member to the statement in Command Paper 4122, that "having regard to the widely scattered responsibilities of the British Navy, it is not practicable for us to cut down the number of naval units beyond a certain point."

Miss RATHBONE: 16.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty in what year the Government's proposal to the Disarmament Conference for the reduction of the tonnage of capital ships will, if accepted, begin to effect a reduction in the tonnage of British ships; and how many years it will take before the ultimate reduction of 195,000 tons foreshadowed will be effected?

Lord STANLEY: Owing to the fact that under the terms of the London Naval Treaty not only have we already prematurely scrapped five capital ships, but have also accepted a complete "building holiday" in this category until 31st December, 1936, further reduction in the total tonnage of British capital ships resulting from acceptance of the British Government's proposal to the Disarmament Conference will of necessity be deferred until after 1936. The number of years required to effect the total ultimate reduction of 195,000 tons will depend upon the agreement reached at the General Disarmament Conference upon the age limits of capital ships and upon the rate of replacement of existing capital ships which may be authorised after 1936 by this House.

Rear-Admiral SUETER: 12.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what savings would accrue under all Votes if capital ships of over 10,000 tons displacement were abolished by agreement with the other naval nations?

Lord STANLEY: It is impossible to give any reliable estimate of what saving might accrue from the abolition of capital ships of over 10,000 tons displacement, since such abolition would in all probability entail additional expenditure in other directions which might well more than offset the savings attributable to the abolition of the ships in question.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS (TIMBER SITUATION).

Commander OLIVER LOCKERLAMPSON: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any information regarding the meeting called by the League of Nations on the question of the regulation of the export of timber; and what is the attitude adopted by Great Britain and Soviet Russia in this matter?

Sir J. SIMON: In accordance with a suggestion made at the Twelfth Assembly, the Economic Committee of the League organised a Committee of Experts, which met at Geneva in April last, to consider the world timber situation. Great Britain and the timber exporting States of Europe, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were represented, and my hon. and gallant Friend will find a record of the proceedings in a League of Nations publication, of which I am sending him a copy. A further conference met in Vienna in June for the purpose of reaching working agreements based on the experts' conclusions. His Majesty's Government did not consider that their interests were such as to warrant representation. I have not yet received an official report of the proceedings.

Commander LOCKER-LAMPSON: Is it not possible for us to secure representation on any future committees?

Sir J. SIMON: There is no question of our not being entitled to representation. What I said was that the conference of experts at Vienna in June was one in regard to which His Majesty's Government did not think that their interests were such as would warrant representation.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

GERMANY (BRITISH COAL IMPORTATION).

Mr. MITCHESON: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the present position regarding the restrictions imposed by the German Government upon British coal imports into Germany?

Sir J. SIMON: Yes, Sir. I am glad to take this opportunity of informing the House before it rises of the position reached on this important question. The German Government have proposed that the question of the German restriction on the importation into Germany of United Kingdom coal, together with the question whether the Customs duties at present in force in the United Kingdom are compatible with the assurances contained in paragraph 2 of the Protocol to the Anglo-German commercial treaty, should be submitted to a court of arbitration consisting of one German, one British, and one neutral arbitrator. His Majesty's Government have accepted this proposal to arbitrate in respect of coal, but corre-
spondence is still proceeding between the two Governments as regards the best manner of dealing with the question raised by the German Government in respect of the United Kingdom Customs tariff.

Mr. LAWSON: Will the arbitration be expedited in view of the parlous condition of the industry?

Sir J. SIMON: We shall do everything possible to expedite it in every way.

Captain PETER MACDONALD: Surely the German Government do not question the right of the British Government to impose Customs duties as they think fit?

Sir J. SIMON: The question is one of interpretation of a protocol, and everybody is entitled, the Germans as well as anybody else, to raise questions as to the interpretation of an international document.

IMPORTS (BRITISH SHIPS).

Mr. MITCHESON: 26.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the fact that the French Government now provides that all coal supplied to French companies from this country must be carried by French ships and that the Italian Government makes the same provision regarding coal taken from the United Kingdom to Italian ports, he will consider the advisability of making similar conditions regarding all or any of our imports from France and Italy?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Hore-Belisha): I am not aware that either the French or the Italian Government imposes the requirement stated by my hon. Friend.

GAS UNDERTAKINGS.

Sir WILFRID SUGDEN: 27.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if the instructions issued by the Government in 1929 as to expenditure on gas undertakings are still in force; whether it is the policy of the Government to encourage expenditure which does not add to the burden of the rates on the part of gas undertakings; and whether he will circularise local authorities as to the advisability of expanding the newer processes of gas undertakings which are becoming available through the results of recent research?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am unable to identify the instructions regarding expenditure to which my hon. Friend refers, but I do not think it is necessary to remind gas undertakings of the desirability of adopting any new process designed to maintain or increase their efficiency.

Sir W. SUGDEN: Might I ask if the hon. Gentleman will suggest to the local authorities that they should consider this matter, in view of the usefulness of the inventions?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: If my hon. Friend has any suggestions to make, I shall be very happy to consider them.

Sir W. SUDDEN: May I bring to the notice of my hon. Friend that all local undertakings and all local authorities are not as progressive as they might be?

COAL EXPORTS (BRAZIL).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 28.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what was the export of coal from Britain to Brazil in 1931; and whether he has any evidence that the recent agreement between Germany and Brazil for the export of 300,000 tons of coal from Germany in exchange for coffee from Brazil will affect British coal exports?

Mr. JOHN COLVILLE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): Exports of coal from the United Kingdom to Brazil in 1931 amounted to 663,761 tons. I have seen the recent Press reports as to an agreement of the kind mentioned, and the matter is receiving active attention, particularly from the point of view of its possible effect on United Kingdom trade.

Mr. WILLIAMS: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether his Department have examined the possibility of a similar exchange of barter with our continental friends?

Mr. COLVILLE: The question of barter has been examined, but the difficulty in Brazil is to secure payment for existing accounts. In that regard, I would refer him to a statement which I made a few days ago, as to what the Government would be able to do in certain cases.

RETAIL TRADE (PROFIT).

Mr. MABANE: 29.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will, during the adjournment, invite the cooperation of organised associations of
retail traders with his Department to discover means whereby the general rate of gross profit in retail trade may be reduced?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I would refer my hon. Friend to the statements I made on the Second Reading and Committee stage of the Financial Emergency Enactments (Continuance) Bill in March last, as to the steps taken by the Board of Trade in this connection.

Mr. MABANE: These associations are very anxious to co-operate in this matter, and, in view of the fact that retail prices are more likely to be reduced in co-operation with them than in antagonism, will the hon. Gentleman not make some approach towards them?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I hope the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that there is any antagonism between the retail associations and the Board of Trade. On the contrary, we are most anxious to cooperate with them, and in fact do so.

TEXTILE MACHINERY (EXPORT).

Major PROCTER: 30.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if, in the interests of Lancashire unemployed workers, the Government will put an embargo on the export of second-hand textile machinery now lying in empty factories?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The action suggested would be contrary to the International Convention for the Abolition of Import and Export Prohibitions and Restrictions, and to the Anglo-German Commercial Treaty of 1924.

Major PROCTER: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Germany has put a duty, virtually an embargo, of £400 a ton upon such machinery and so also has Switzerland? Is he further aware that our policy permits our competitors to buy up derelict machinery at scrap-iron prices, and to use it in competition with our cotton manufacturers?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I confined my answer to the question put by my hon. Friend. He asked whether we will put an embargo on the export of second-hand machinery. I have informed him that that is contrary to Treaty. What Germany has done is to put a duty on.

Mr. PERKINS: Might I ask my hon. Friend whether the Government will also put a duty on?

EXCHANGE RESTRICTIONS.

Mr. CHORLTON: 31.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what reply he has returned to the request of the British Chambers of Commerce to receive a deputation to discuss exchange restrictions on our foreign trade and the methods proposed to alleviate the difficulties?

Mr. COLVILLE: I have agreed to receive a deputation from the Association of British Chambers of Commerce on this subject.

Mr. CHORLTON: May I ask what action will be taken during the Recess to accelerate the settlement of this question, which is affecting trade so seriously?

Mr. COLVILLE: It will be impossible within the compass of a question and answer to outline what is proposed. I hope to have an opportunity of explaining more fully to this deputation of Chambers of Commerce the point that my hon. Friend raises.

EXPORT CREDITS (RUSSIA).

Major PROCTER: 37.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if his attention has been called to the fact that specifications and terms of an important contract for the purchase of large quantities of textile machinery have been arranged between a Lancashire firm and the Union of Soviet Republics contingent upon a grant of export credit facilities; and has he received any report from the Export Credits Committee on the subject?

Mr. COLVILLE: I have heard that discussions have been taking place, but I am informed that no application has been received by the Export Credits Guarantee Department. While any application will be carefully considered, I am not able to say what, if any, further Government guarantees for credits for exports to Russia will be available.

Major PROCTER: Is my hon. Friend aware that this fund is now showing a profit of some £400,000, and that the textile machinery manufacturers have not received very much of this money? I hold in my hand—

HON. MEMBERS: Speech!

Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members must not make speeches in asking supplementary questions.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: In view of the fact that Lancashire is very depressed, will the hon. Gentleman take steps to see that this contract, which it is suggested should be placed in Lancashire, is given proper facilities?

Mr. COLVILLE: As I stated in my answer, no application has yet been made to the Export Credits Committee. If the hon. Member cares to see me about the matter, I shall be glad to see him. On the general question of credits for Russia, I have already explained that, if the guarantee of the British Government is to be used, it must be used with due caution and care after examination.

IMPORT DUTIES.

Mr. SUTCLIFFE: 52.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in view of the difficulty experienced by many business firms in understanding and answering the questions contained in the forms required when making application to the Import Duties Advisory Committee for additional duties, he will represent to the Committee die necessity of issuing simpler forms for this purpose?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Major Elliot): I understand that the Committee do not require applications for additional duties to be submitted in a particular form, but applicants are supplied with a list of heads of information for their guidance in furnishing a reasoned case on which the Committee can base their consideration of the application. Should an applicant experience any difficulty in understanding the Committee's questions, I am certain that the Committee will be ready to explain them to him.

Mr. SUTCLIFFE: Is the Financial Secretary aware that many small firms who are not members of trade organisations have experienced great difficulty in this matter?

Major ELLIOT: Difficulties in the initial stages of this scheme are, I am afraid, inevitable, but I am sure that the committee will themselves afford the utmost assistance to small firms and others who find it difficult to grasp the precise bearings of any questions which may be put to them.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA AND JAPAN.

SHANGHAI.

Sir JOHN WARDLAW - MILNE: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any further information regarding the progress of the arrangements for the proposed round table conference on the future of Shanghai; and whether, during the Parliamentary Recess, he will endeavour to press forward the deliberations of the conference and secure an early decision upon the problem?

Sir J. SIMON: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As regards the second part, while I cannot give any undertaking, I can assure my hon. Friend that the matter will not be lost sight of.

SITUATION.

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will give the House the latest information he has on the present situation in China?

Sir J. SIMON: I am afraid that it is impossible to describe the general situation in China within the limits of an answer to a Parliamentary question. The House has been kept fully informed of the position in regard to the important questions still at issue, and I have no information of any recent developments which call for special comment.

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: As it appears that the Chinese Government—that is, the Nanking Government—are making every effort to bring order in the Yangtse Valley, will the right hon. Gentleman do his best, if a suggestion is made that appears to support a, movement to bring order out of chaos, to do everything he can to help it?

Sir J. SIMON: The hon. Gentleman may be assured that we will do everything we can to support bringing order out of chaos into the Yangtse Valley and in every other part of the world.

MANCHURIA.

Mr. NUNN: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he intends to get into communication with the Government of the United States of America with a view to obtaining their co-operation in maintaining the policy of the open door in Manchuria?

Sir J. SIMON: I have no information to show that British trade in Manchuria is being discriminated against, and assurances have been received from the Japanese Government that the "open door" will be maintained, and in these circumstances I see no reason for taking any special step such as that suggested.

Mr. NUNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are complaints on the part of British merchants dealing in Manchuria that there is a certain amount of discrimination against their trade, and will he take steps to discover the extent of it?

Sir J. SIMON: If my hon. Friend has that information and will give it to me, I can assure him that it will be carefully looked into. Of course, I have been in communication with the United States Government with reference to the position in Manchuria.

CHINA INDEMNITY (APPLICATION) ACT.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can now make any statement as to the allocation of the funds for work to be executed in Great Britain under the terms of the China Indemnity (Application) Act, 1931; and what proportion of orders to engineering firms resulting is now being executed?

Sir J. SIMON: According to my information, the Chinese Government have approved the allocation of two-thirds of the total funds to railways and the bulk of the rest to conservancy works. The residue is to be devoted to requirements of the Ministry of Industries and the National Construction Commission. The contracts placed in this country up to the 21st December last totalled approximately £347,500. The London Purchasing Commission has, of course, continued its work since that date, but I have no details of the orders placed subsequently.

Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is an allocation for education purposes?

Sir J. SIMON: I am speaking subject to correction, but I think my hon. Friend
will find that that has to do with the other part of the fund, and not the part which is dealt with in this question.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: May I ask whether the allocation is directly in accordance with the terms of the Act?

Sir J. SIMON: We believe so.

Mr. MANDER: Is the right hon. Gentleman certain that this railway material is actually being used for railway construction? It is said to have been sold on the market at a low price.

STATUTE OF MEMEL.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Permanent Court of International Justice has yet concluded its deliberations on the interpretations of the Statute of Memel; and, if so, what are its findings?

Sir J. SIMON: No, Sir. The proceedings are still in progress.

Mr. DAVIES: Can the right hon. Gentleman tells us when we may expect the decision in this matter?

Sir J. SIMON: My information is, though of course I cannot bind the Court of International Justice, that it may be hoped for in the month of August. It is right to say that the distinguished British representative, Sir William Malkin, was necessarily taken off to Lausanne in connection with the work there, and that involved a short delay.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

SUBMARINE M2.

Captain WATT: 11.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can make a further statement as to how the work of raising His Majesty's Submarine M2 is progressing and the causes of the delay?

Lord STANLEY: Since the reply given to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) on 25th May, weather and general conditions have been mainly good and the work of preparing and testing the submarine for the purpose of blowing out the water has been considerably advanced. During this
work it was found on 23rd June that the main tank blowing valves inside the hull were open, resulting in the interconnection of these tanks, a state of affairs which was not previously apparent. As a result it was found necessary to suspend lifting operations until this unforeseen circumstance could be dealt with. Work continued satisfactorily until 29th June when a change to south-westerly weather made work impossible. On. 5th July, weather and tide conditions were again favourable and work was recommenced and is still in progress. In addition, four lifting pontoons, or "Camels," are being placed in position, one at each side of bow and stern, for the purpose of supplying a further reserve of buoyancy now considered necessary. During the weekend 9th-l1th July, an attempt to raise M2 was made. At this attempt the bow of the vessel was raised some 15 feet without difficulty but a serious leak from the bow torpedo tubes developed; which has proved too great to allow any further attempt to be made until the leak has been located and stopped. It is now considered desirable to seal up the bow tubes so that possible future leaks may be effectually prevented and work has already been commenced on the outboard ends of the tubes, but until this is completed no further attempts can be made to raise the vessel. If the good weather conditions continue, further efforts may be made in the course of the next few weeks, but in operations of this nature it is not possible to give any definite forecast of developments.

HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "NATAL" (SALVAGE).

Mr. MACPHERSON: 13.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if salvage operations begun in 1916 on the "Natal," in the Cromarty Firth, have been stopped; if not, when it is intended to resume them; and if he will state what the terms of the contract with the Middlesbrough Salvage Company were?

Lord STANLEY: Salvage operations under the contract with the Middles-brough Salvage Company have been temporarily suspended mainly owing to the depressed state of the scrap metal market. It cannot be stated at present when work is likely to be resumed, but the contract is not due for completion until February, 1934. The wreck was sold outright to the contractors for a lump sum.

CONTRACT (WHOLESALE CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY).

Commander MARSDEN: 14.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the trial contract for candles placed in April last with the Co-operative Wholesale Society is being satisfactorily fulfilled; and whether the Admiralty propose to renew the contract?

Lord STANLEY: It is too early to say whether this trial contract is being satisfactorily fulfilled, as no quantities have yet been demanded by the establishments at which deliveries are to be made. The placing of a further order with the society will depend upon the prices quoted and upon whether deliveries under the trial order are satisfactory. I regret that this trial contract was inadvertently omitted from the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member on the 29th June last.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Is there any real reason why the Co-operative Wholesale Society should not have these contracts?

Lord STANLEY: I think they have just the same opportunities as others.

Mr. O'CONNOR: In view of the fact that the profits of the Co-operative Wholesale Society are not subject to taxation, will the hon. Gentleman transfer this contract to some firm which pays its fair share of direct taxation?

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: Is the hon. Member aware that in all contracts the stipulation is made that the lowest tender will be accepted, and has not the Co-operative Society in this case complied with that condition?

Lord STANLEY: I can hardly say that the lowest tender must necessarily always be accepted; every factor has to be taken into consideration.

Mr. LAWSON: Would it not be true to say that the conditions set out by the hon. Gentleman are simply the conditions set out when he asks for tenders from any other organisation, and is he not rather surprised to hear such questions put about a people's organisation which is making an honest effort to do business?

GERMAN AIRSHIP FLIGHT.

Mr. DONNER: 18.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air who was
responsible for extending permission to the Graf Zeppelin to fly over London and large tracts of this country; and whether he will ensure that this or similar incidents will not again occur?

Mr. WOMERSLEY (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. I would refer my hon. Friend to the Anglo-German Air Agreement, particulars of which are contained in Command Papers 3010 of 1928 and 3663 of 1930. He will see that under this agreement each contracting party undertakes, subject to certain conditions, to grant liberty of passage above his territory to the aircraft of the other.

Mr. DONNER: Would it not be possible to explain to our German friends that the flight of Zeppelin aircraft over this country is easily misunderstood and certainly disliked by a large number of people?

Mr. WOMERSLEY: I would ask my hon. Friend to study the Command Papers which he will find in the Library, and, if he cares to see me after Questions, I will point out the salient features of those Command Papers.

Mr. PIKE: Is it not the opinion of the hon. Gentleman that questions of this vexatious nature only disturb the possibility of a peaceful atmosphere between the two countries?

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

ROAD ACCIDENTS.

Sir HENRY JACKSON: 20.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he proposes to take any steps to obtain a more complete analysis of the causes of road accidents in order that in the light of the information thus obtained, more effective means may be devised for their prevention?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Pybus): In consultation with the Home Office and with the Scottish Office, I propose to arrange for a special investigation of the causes of all fatal road accidents over a period sufficiently long to give reliable results. In the case of fatal accidents, information is generally available, in the form of police reports or of evidence before the coroner, which, if properly collated, would enable the cause of the accident to be established with
some degree of certainty. The information thus obtained will be set out in a form of return, which has been in preparation for some time, suitable for mechanical tabulation. In this inquiry I propose to act in co-operation with the National Safety First Association, who have done valuable work in this field in the past.

Mr. LOGAN: Might I ask if the Minister will make a recommendation to the local authorities for subways to be built where there are large schools, and where children have to cross the roads, in order to avoid this traffic?

Mr. PYBUS: That matter does not arise directly from this question, but I will take notice of it.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.

Lord SCONE: 22.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has considered the resolution passed and sent to him by the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland on 1st June in regard to the danger of foot-and-mouth disease being re-introduced into this country through the medium of foreign vegetables; and if he is prepared to adopt the measures advocated in this resolution?

Sir VICTOR WARRENDER (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend is sending the Noble Lord a copy of the reply given on his behalf on 23rd June to questions by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh Central (Mr. Guy), and my hon. Friend the Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon). He is also sending him a copy of the communication mentioned in the last part of the reply.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

INFANTRY BATTALION, TIENTSIN (COST).

Mr. MANDER: 23.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he will state the cost during the past year of the garrison kept to guard the legation at Peiping, and also at Tientsin in connection therewith?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Duff Cooper): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 31st May, to my hon. Friend the Member for West Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Dr. Leech).

Mr. MANDER: Could not that money be saved if the British Legation were moved to the headquarters of the Chinese Government at Nanking, or to Shanghai, 600 miles nearer?

Mr. COOPER: That is hardly a matter for the War Office to deal with.

TERRITORIAL ARMY.

Mr. HUTCHISON: 24.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he is in a position to make an official statement on the subject of handing over to the Territorial Army in case of mobilisation the undivided responsibility for coast defence?

Mr. COOPER: A detailed scheme, which has been prepared in consultation with Territorial Army Associations, will shortly be promulgated.

TANKS.

Miss RATHBONE: 25.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office how many tanks of over 20 tons weight the War Office possesses; how many tanks we keep in India and what is their total tonnage; how many are over 20 tons; how many between 10 and 20 tons; and how many below 10 tons in weight?

Mr. COOPER: I do not think it would be in the public interest to publish this information.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

SEWAGE AND WATER WORKS (LOANS).

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: 33.
asked the Minister of Health the number of loans of £50,000 and under sanctioned by the Ministry for sewage and water works in England and Wales during the six months ended 30th June, 1931, and the six months ended 30th June, 1932, respectively, also the aggregate amount of such loans, respectively; and whether these loans were sanctioned on the ground that the works were necessary in the interest of the public health and well being?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young): The figures are, for the first six months referred to, 959 loans for a total sum of £4,450,000; for the second six months, 645 and £2,460,000. The answer to the latter part of the question is in the affirmative. Many of the schemes were carried out with the aid of an unemployment grant.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: Might I ask if the right hon. Gentleman does not agree that it is false economy to withhold sanction to these loans if in doing so it jeopardises the health of the people?

Sir H. YOUNG: That, I think, is an obvious proposition.

Mr. MICHAEL BEAUMONT: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that it is by no means always the case that withholding of sanction to such schemes endangers the health of the people?

Sir H. YOUNG: That is also perfectly true.

SEWAGE OUTFLOW, BUGBROOKE.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 35.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that doctors have certified that a nuisance at the sewage outflow in the village of Bugbrooke, Northants, is having a serious effect on the health of the inhabitants; and whether his Department is taking any steps to deal with the matter?

Sir H. YOUNG: My attention was drawn in April last to an alleged nuisance arising from sewage in a ditch at Bugbrooke. I communicated with the responsible local authority, who replied that they are taking steps to remedy the nuisance.

Mr. DAVIES: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform us whether those steps have actually been taken?

Sir H. YOUNG: I am actively making further inquiries on that point.

INEDIBLE GREASE.

Mr. ROSBOTHAM: 36.
asked the Minister of Health if he has considered the copies sent to him of the correspondance that has taken place between the American Secretary of State and the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands regarding the renovating of inedible white grease for export to other countries for human consumption; and will he, in the interests of the public health, take the necessary steps to prevent any of this product landing in this country?

Sir H. YOUNG: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for sending me the correspondence, and I will make
inquiries. I should like to inform the House, however, that all lard imported into this country from the Netherlands bears a Government certificate that it is derived from animals which were free from disease at the time of slaughter, and that before the certificate was recognised a specific assurance was given which would preclude its application to any product prepared from inedible grease.

POOR LAW RELIEF, LOWESTOFT.

Mr. BUCHANAN: 34.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the public assistance committee of the East Suffolk County Council in Lowestoft is paying scales of able-bodied relief at much lower rates than the scales paid under the Unemployment Insurance Act; and whether, seeing that the Ministry of Health have intervened in cases where the scales of relief were higher than those for transitional benefit, he will intervene equally in cases where they are substantially lower?

Sir H. YOUNG: So far as I are aware, the East Suffolk County Council have not adopted any scale of relief, and I have at present no reason to suppose that they are not adequately discharging their duties in the relief of destitution.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that certain unemployed in Lowestoft are receiving more by way of unemployment benefit than by State relief, and, seeing that the Minister intervenes to prevent the county council from paying scales which are too high, will he not make representations that this county council should at least pay something nearly equivalent to what other parts of the country are paying?

Sir H. YOUNG: As I stated in my original reply, I have no evidence that the county council are not discharging their duty in the correct manner. If the hon. Gentleman has particulars of cases in which it is alleged that there is undue hardship, I will certainly give those cases most careful consideration.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Thank you.

SCOTLAND (SMALLHOLDINGS).

Lord SCONE: 39.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he proposes
to convert into smallholdings the various farms on the estate at Lintrose, in the counties of Perth and Angus; and what notice he intends to give to the present occupiers of these farms?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Major Sir Archibald Sinclair): The adaptation and equipment of smallholdings at Lintrose will proceed as current tenancies are terminated after the usual notice of one year in each case. Two tenancies have already been terminated. Notices will expire in two further cases at Martinmas next and, in the remaining five cases on the estate, notices will be served in due course to expire at Martinmas 1933.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

SCHOLARSHIP, BATH.

Mr. JOHN: 40.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether he is aware that the daughter of a ratepayer in Bath was awarded a scholarship of £40 a year for three or four years, as the case may be, in addition to a State scholarship, tenable at Westfield College, London, and that, at the end of her first year, the scholarship has been terminated by the Bath Borough Council; and what steps he proposes to take by increasing the State scholarship proportionately or otherwise?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Ramsbotham): From such information as the Board possess, it would appear that the student in question is not a State scholar, but is being aided by grant under the Regulations for the Training of Teachers. These regulations prescribe the amount to be given, and the Board have no power to increase the amount in individual cases.

NECESSITOUS CHILDREN (BOOTS).

Mr. PEARSON: 41.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether, in view of the need for providing boots for school children in necessitous areas, he will consider the desirability of amending Section 84 of the Education Act of 1921 so as to include the provision of boots for school children under the same conditions as those contained in Section 83 of the Act relating to food?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: It is not at present proposed to introduce legislation such as my hon. Friend suggests.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS (INTEREST).

Mr. TRAIN: 44.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if steps will be taken at an early date under which the loans granted by the Public Works Loan Board will be given at a figure less than 4¾ per cent.; and whether the interest on housing bonds will be reduced?

Major ELLIOT: My hon. Friend will recollect that, in announcing the War Loan Conversion Scheme on the 30th June, my right hon. Friend expressed his confidence that anyone who might be contemplating the issue of new capital in the market in the near future would forbear from coming forward for a few weeks while the conversion operation was proceeding. It would be contrary to the policy thus enunciated to take any step which might encourage local authorities in the near future either to approach the Public Works Loan Commissioners with requests for advances from the Local Loans Fund or to make a new issue of housing bonds. Accordingly, my right hon. Friend does not propose to make any change in the rate of interest at present, but the matter will certainly be reconsidered as soon as conditions permit.

WAR LOAN CONVERSION.

Mr. MASON: 46.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is now in a position to state the progress which has been made in the applications for conversion of the 5 per cent. War Loan?

Mr. STOURTON: 43.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total amount of assented 5 per cent. War Loan and the number of holders this figure represents?

Major ELLIOT: As I have already stated, my right hon. Friend is entirely satisfied with the progress of the scheme to date. The flow of continuance applications continues with undiminished strength, over 100,000 having been received by the Bank of England and the Post Office yesterday morning, a considerable increase on the previous average daily intake, and in the case of forms sent to the Bank of England the
largest on any single day, since the offer was announced. The total number of continuance applications already received is nearly one-third of the whole number of holdings on the books.

Mr. D. MASON: While congratulating the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, may I ask him, in view of the adjournment of the House, whether he will take steps to see that an official statement is issued from time to time, either frown the Treasury or from the Bank of England, as to the continued progress of this admirable conversion scheme?

Major ELLIOT: Yes, Sir; we shall take steps to keep the public informed of the progress of the scheme.

Mr. MAXTON: Will precise figures be given, instead of the general statements that have been made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the last few days?

Major ELLIOT: Of course, when it is possible to give precise figures, precise figures will be given. In the initial stages of the scheme, of course, it is impossible to give figures which, by reason of the time lag, would not be out of date by the time that they were communicated to the House.

Mr. GURNEY BRAITHWAITE: May I ask my right hon. and gallant Friend, before the House adjourns, whether lie is in a position to confirm the statement which appeared in some sections of the Press this week that over £1,000,000,000, or half the total amount, has already been converted?

Major ELLIOT: I prefer to make no pronouncement as to actual amounts until I can do so with the full weight of the official examination behind me.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 49.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether trustees arranging for the conversion of War Loan will receive the premium of 5s. per £100 converted, in addition to bankers and stockbrokers?

Major ELLIOT: No, Sir.

NATIONAL SAVINGS CERTIFICATES.

Mr. ROBINSON: 47.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is yet in a position to state the terms upon
which the issue of National Savings Certificates will be resumed?

Major ELLIOT: As was announced in the Press on the 1st July, the new series of Savings Certificates will be issued at 16s., increasing in value to 23s. at the end of eleven years. The value at the end of the first year after purchase will be 16s. 4d.; during the second year interest will accrue at the rate of 1d., and after the second year at the rate of 2d., for each complete period of three months. A bonus of 4d. will be added at the end of the eleventh year.

Mr. ROBINSON: Will the Financial Secretary bear in mind the importance to working-class investors of an early resumption of the issue of National Savings Certificates; and can he say how soon they will be issued once again?

Major ELLIOT: I would not like to give a precise date, but we are fully conscious of the desirability of starting the issue of these certificates as soon as possible.

IMPORT DUTIES.

Captain P. MACDONALD: 50.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what has been the total yield, to the latest available date, of the duties imposed under the Import Duties Act, the Abnormal Importations Act, and the Horticultural Products Act?

Major ELLIOT: The approximate amount of revenue derived, up to the 30th June, 1932, from the duties imposed under the Acts in question was as follows:

£


Import Duties Act
5,786,000


Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Act
1,341,000


Horticultural Products (Emergency Customs Duties) Act
414,000

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (EX-SERVICE MEN).

Captain IAN FRASER: 51.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether the Government have reached a decision with regard to a number of ex-service civil servants, known as salaried officers, who at present occupy executive positions superior to the clerical class, and have done 10 to 12 years' service; and what the decision is?

Major ELLIOT: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. This matter is now under discussion by a special committee of official and staff representatives, including among the latter representatives of the class of temporary salaried officers.

Captain FRASER: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend give full weight to the fact that these salaried officers are supported by an agreement between them and the official side which implies, in the view of many Members of this House, permanent employment for them in positions superior to those of the clerical grade, and that each of them has had a letter which confirms the view that they should be kept in those superior positions, and should not be put down to the bottom of the clerical grade?

Major ELLIOT: I will, of course, keep those contentions in mind, but, as my hon. and gallant Friend will realise, these matters are suitable for discussion in exactly such a committee as is now examining them, where they can be discussed with the representatives of the very class of civil servants whose case he is now bringing forward.

Captain FRASER: In the event of agreement not being reached in that committee, will my right hon. and gallant Friend undertake that he will not prejudice the position of these men by taking advantage of the fact that the House is not sitting?

Major ELLIOT: I cannot give any undertaking that no action will be taken during the long period between now and the re-assembling of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

STATISTICS.

Mr. O'CONNOR: 53.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the increase or decrease in the number of unemployed persons for the four weeks ending at the nearest convenient date to the 27th June, 1931?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): The period this year was one of five weeks, from 23rd May to 27th June, 1932. As 25th May was Whit-Monday last year, no exactly correspond-
ing figure is available: but taking the period of four weeks from the following Monday, namely, 1st June to 29th June, 1931, the increase was 34,918, and taking the period of six weeks from the previous Monday, namely, 18th May to 29th June, 1931, the increase was 157,952.

Mr. O'CONNOR: Do those figures show that the rate of increase of unemployment at this time last year was about 25 times as great as it is this year?

Mr. HUDSON: I cannot do that sum in my mind at such short notice, but it is clear that the increase was greater last year than this.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us which are the industries that are most adversely affected this year?

Mr. HUDSON: I think I gave those figures yesterday. My recollection is that coal represented an increase of 87,000, and the rest of industry represented a decrease of 81,000.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Is it not the case that if you add on to the figures already given those unemployed persons who are no longer registered the increase has been much more rapid this year than last year?

Mr. HUDSON: If a man is not registering for employment, the presumption is that he does not require our assistance to obtain employment.

Mr. MAXTON: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied with the progress as represented in these figures?

Mr. HUDSON: Considering the worldwide depression, I think they show that we are holding our own.

TRANSITIONAL PAYMENTS.

Mr. COCKS: 58.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of individual applications for transitional benefit in the county of Nottinghamshire; the number of individual applicants who have been granted full benefit; the number who have been granted reduced benefit; and the number who have been deprived of benefit altogether for the months of January, February, March, April, May and June of this year, respectively?

Mr. HUDSON: As the reply includes a table of figures, I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

Determinations by Public Assistance Committees in respect of applications for transitional payments submitted during the period 21st December, 1931, to 4th June, 1932.


Period.
Applications.
Determinations.


Initial.
Renewal, etc.
Total.
Allowed at maximum benefit rates.
Allowed at lower rates.
Needs of applicants held not to justify payment.



Administrative County of Nottingham.


21st December, 1931– 23rd January, 1932.
—
—
11,776
9,471
1,792
513


25th January-20th February
988
7,003
7,991
6,664
1,204
123


22nd February-2nd April
1,331
10,473
11,804
9,460
2,132
212


4th April-7th May
1,020
8,374
9,394
7,621
1,594
179


9th May-4th June
688
6,853
7,541
5,982
1,345
214



Nottingham County Borough.


21st December, 1931–23rd January, 1932.
—
—
9,972
5,594
3,348
1,030


25th January-20th February
998
5,855
6,853
4,270
2,256
327


22nd February-2nd April
1,105
8,654
9,759
6,292
2,985
482


4th April-7th May
964
7,045
8,009
5,021
2,639
349


9th May-4th June
645
6,423
7,068
4,620
2,289
159


The figures for determinations include renewals and revisions. Statistics on this basis in respect of individual applications are not available.

Major PROCTER: 56.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will issue a circular to all public assistance committees to the effect that where the delay in granting benefit has been due to the fault of the public assistance committee the unemployed person shall not be prejudiced?

Mr. HUDSON: I have no evidence of such delay, but I would point out that any interval should normally be covered by interim payments or by an interim determination by the committee's officer.

Major PROCTER: Is it a fact that, if an award is made on a Monday but is not communicated by the public assistance committee until the Thursday, the workless man or woman does not receive the award on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday?

Mr. HUDSON: That depends on the particular day on which payments are made at the exchange at which he is registered.

Major PROCTER: Can circumstances like that be altered?

Mr. GODFREY NICHOLSON: Where it can be reasonably anticipated that large numbers of men will be paid off, and where, owing to the smallness of the staff of the local exchanges, it can be anticipated that there will be delay in granting benefit, can the hon. Gentleman give a promise that extra staff will be drafted in from other exchanges?

Mr. HUDSON: That does not strictly arise out of the question, but every attempt is made by the Department to see that as little delay and inconvenience is caused as possible, and we draft extra staff in when there is reason to believe that there will be an emergency owing to the closing down of a particular pit.

Mr. COCKS: 59.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he has considered the resolution from the urban district council of Hucknall protesting against the action of the Nottinghamshire County Council in superseding the relief committee of the Hucknall district in the administra-
tion of transitional benefit; and what action he proposes to take in consepuence?

Mr. HUDSON: My right hon. Friend has received resolutions on this matter. This relief committee was not suspended by the Nottinghamshire County Council. It declined to carry out its statutory duty in accordance with the directions of the county council, and, in view of the emergency so created, the county council appointed a committee to carry on the work of administration under powers conferred on them by the Order-in-Council. The county council are taking proper steps to discharge their statutory functions, and my right hon. Friend is not called upon to intervene.

Mr. COCKS: Is it not a fact that the local authority are aware of the local conditions, whereas the committee appointed by the county council are absolutely ignorant of them?

Mr. HUDSON: The local committee would not have been superseded if they had carried out their proper functions.

Mr. LAWSON: Is it not a fact that the Conservative county council superseded the local Labour committee?

Mr. HUDSON: Not until the local Labour committee refused to carry out its functions.

Mr. BROCKLEBANK: How many local officials have been superseded?

Mr. HUDSON: They are not superseded by my Department but by the local county council. I could not say how many others in the country have been superseded.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: 60.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will consider the advisability of making it more generally known that applicants under the means test for transitional benefit have a right to go personally before their local committee and ask for a reconsideration of their case when they are dissatisfied with the decision reached on the report of the visiting investigator, as there are still many in the city of Birmingham who do not know of this regulation?

Mr. HUDSON: I do not think I can add materially to the reply given to a similar question asked by my hon. Friend on 2nd June.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: Can my hon. Friend tell me what that reply was?

Mr. HUDSON: It was replied to by the Minister of Labour. I will send my hon. Friend a copy. It is rather long to read out.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: Do I understand that the Ministry has not made it known that these persons have a right to go before the local committee if they are not satisfied with the decision arrived at after investigation?

Mr. HUDSON: Our information is that that fact is, or should be, well known.

PHYSICAL TRAINING CENTRES.

Mr. TINKER: 54.
asked the Minister of Labour if he is in a position to say where the centres will be to carry out the scheme for the physical exercises of young unemployed men; and can he state how the instructors will be selected?

Mr. HUDSON: A centre has already been opened at Pontypridd. The other centres which it is proposed to open will probably be situated in Liverpool, Middlesbrough and Glasgow. As regards the selection of instructors, the Department has endeavoured to engage the best men available with suitable qualifications.

Mr. MAXTON: Can the hon. Gentleman let Members have some Paper telling us the rules and regulations which are to govern attendance at these centres?

Mr. HUDSON: They were published the other day in answer to a question. I will send the hon. Member a copy.

Mr. TINKER: Who will appoint the instructors? Will it be the local Exchanges or the Ministry of Labour?

Mr. HUDSON: The appointments will be made by the local controllers. They will be servants of the Department, and we are trying to get the very best men we can find in the localities.

Mr. LOGAN: Will the instruction include swimming?

PERTH AND PERTHSHIRE.

Lord SCONE: 57.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will state, to the nearest convenient date, for Perth and Perthshire, respectively, the number of wholly and partially unemployed workers in the linen, glass, and bleaching and dyeing

INSURED PERSONS RECORDED AS UNEMPLOYED.


Industry.
Wholly Unemployed.
Temporarily stopped.
Total.


22nd June, 1931.
27th June, 1932.
22nd June, 1931.
27th June, 1932.
22nd June, 1931.
27th June, 1932.


(i) Perth Employment Exchange.


Linen
19
15
3
9
22
24


Glass
15
17
3
18
18
35


Textile, bleaching, printing, dyeing, etc.
35
41
152
66
187
107


*Laundries, job dyeing and dry cleaning
171
101
2
1
173
102


(ii) Other Exchanges in the County of Perth.


Linen
14
12
—
—
14
12


Glass
—
—
—
—
—
—


Textile, bleaching, printing, dyeing, etc.
5
2
—
131
5
133


*Laundries, job dyeing and dry cleaning
3
5
—
—
3
5


*Separate figures for job dyeing are not available.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury tell us the business likely to be taken when the House resumes in October?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Captain Margesson): Consideration of a Motion to carry over the London Passenger Transport Bill to the next Session of Parliament, and any other business which it is necessary to dispose of before the Session can be brought to a conclusion will be taken on Thursday, 27th October. The Government intend to begin a new Session of Parliament as soon as is practicable after the date of reassembly in October.

Mr. BUCHANAN: With reference to the London Passenger Transport Bill, this has been caried over at least once, if not twice. Has not the time arrived when the Government should make a decision as to whether the Bill is to proceed rather than that we should carry it over each year?

Captain MARGESSON: That is the reason why the Motion is being put down. If it was not put down, the Bill would be killed.

trades, together with the corresponding figures for the same date in 1931?

Mr. HUDSON: As the reply includes a table of figures, I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is it not time that the Government made up their mind whether they are going to pass the Bill or not?

Captain MARGESSON: There have been long and protracted discussions. I understand that they have now been brought to a conclusion.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Have we any guarantee that in the next Session a decision will be made?

Mr. MAXTON: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman serious in asking Members to travel from Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles to come to London on Thursday, 27th October, to consider a Motion that the London Passenger Transport Bill be carried over to the next Session of Parliament?

Captain MARGESSON: In addition, any other business which it is necessary to dispose of before the Session can be brought to a conclusion will be taken on that day, and the Government intend to begin a new Session as soon as practicable after the date of reassembly in. October.

ADJOURNMENT (SUMMER).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

UNEMPLOYMENT (TRANSITIONAL PAYMENTS).

Mr. TINKER: I rise to draw attention to the working of the means test, but before I enter upon that subject I should like to touch upon another matter which has only come to notice this morning. I refer to the question of the Irish Free State (Special Duties) Act. Those who watched the passage of the Measure through the House understood from the Dominions Secretary that some time would be given before the Act was brought into operation. About 6 o'clock last night Black Rod came to the House to announce that hon. Members were required in the House of Lords to listen to the Royal Assent being given to certain Bills, one of which was the Irish Free State (Special Duties) Act. We expected that some time would be given before the powers contained in the Act were put into operation, but anybody who reads the "Times" newspaper today will see that effect is being given to the Order, and that it will come into operation on the 15th. Judging by the Debates of Monday and Tuesday, when we listened to what had happened at Lausanne and Geneva, and when the spirit of good will and tolerance was being emphasised, one would have thought that a little more time would have been given to the Irish people to try to come to some kind of settlement rather than that we should use the mailed fist and say, "Now that we have the power we intend to exercise it. There will be no tolerance or good will towards your people, and we are going to get all we can from you, let the result be what it may." The House of Commons ought to protest against the putting into operation of the Special Duties Act so quickly, and I take the opportunity of emphasising my feelings on the matter as being the first speaker from the Labour benches this morning.
We have been told from time to time that if we could prove that the working of the means test was not being carried out properly the Minister of 12 n. Labour and the Minister of Health would take some kind of action. All of us have received post-
cards with regard to the Disarmament Conferences and other kinds of things, and many of us have also received protests from our constituents in reference to the working of the means test. From Glasgow Green to Leigh Market Place meetings have been held every week voicing the censure and the protests of a vast number of people because they are not satisfied with what is taking place under the Act. Only this morning my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Rhondda (Lieut.-Colonel Watts-Morgan) presented a petition signed by 10,000 people asking that something should be done to alleviate the sufferings caused by the Act in South Wales. It was only last week that the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) presented a petition signed by 53,000 people calling upon the House of Commons to pay attention to what was happening. I have had a petition sent to me signed by 40,000 people in Lancashire with regard to the general position. In my division they have set up a council of action and are getting people to sign a petition to be presented to the House of Commons—4,000 people have already signed it—asking for attention to be given to the matter. It is on these grounds that we ask the House of Commons, on this the last day before the Recess, not to depart without doing something in respect of domestic affairs. We have spent two days discussing matters in the international field. I know that international affairs are important and worthy of attention, and that unless we obtain a settlement of international affairs no good can accrue, but, at the same time, I realise that unless we are able to allay the discontent among the vast number of people who form the backbone of the British race no real settlement can be obtained either internationally or in any other respect.
When we discussed this matter on 10th December, 1931, and pointed out what had happened, the excuse of the Minister of Health was that they had not had lime to see the result of the working of the Act, and that it would be the duty of the Government to see what could be done. He also promised that if we could bring direct evidence of the unfair working of the Act his Department would only be too glad to put matters right. As he said that on that occasion, and if we are able to satisfy the Minister of
Labour and the Minister of Health today of the unfair working of the Act, something ought to be done at once to deal with the matter. I will give the example of my constituency. Lancashire is a peculiar place as far as the working of the Act is concerned. It is divided into two parts. There is what is called the administrative parts of the County of Lancashire, and there are about 18 county boroughs who deal with their own cases separately and apart from the administrative county. The county boroughs comprise a population of 3,400,000, and the administrative county comprises a population of 1,800,000. Lancashire cannot be said to vary very much, taking it in vast areas, and one would expect that in the working of the Act there would be very little difference in its administration, and that therefore there would not be great anomalies in regard to the number who get full transitional benefits, those who only get part benefit, and those who may be, cut out altogether. Yet we find that in two parts of Lancashire, almost identical in regard to the conditions under which they live and work, there is a tremendous amount of variation in the administration of the means test. That is what is causing so much trouble all over Lancashire.
One would think that it was merely Members of Parliament who were making protests and that it could be brushed on one side as mere propaganda, but when we find that all over Lancashire bodies of men and their representatives are making daily protests and sending deputations, it is time that something was done. I pointed out in a previous speech that the representatives of the Lancashire miners had joined with the textile workers in meeting the authorities at Preston to ask them if they could not do something with respect to the matter. They made their protest. Since then they have met the Minister of Labour or his representative. I was not able to be present, but I understand that they stated their case in such a manner that he was impressed by what they said. Those are two very large bodies of trade unionists in Lancashire. Moreover, we are having meetings all over the Lancashire Divisions and are emphasising the different variations with our town councils. A letter appeared some time ago in the "Manchester Guardian" from a man who sits on the
Lancashire County Council. This is what he says:
The charge against the Public Assistance Committee of the county council is not that they have refused benefit in cases where the applicants' circumstances would have obviously disentitled them to benefit in the mind of every reasonable person. The charge is a two-fold one: (1) That they refused benefit in cases where the assets are inconsiderable and insisted upon these small savings being first exhausted.
If anyone has a few pounds saved they have insisted that those savings shall be spent before they can get any benefit.
(2) That they are administering the Order in Council more unsympathetically than many of the county boroughs who have, happily for their inhabitants autonomy in this matter (subject only to the Order in Council) and also than other county councils. I have had cited to me an instance of a man who, on removing from a county borough to the administrative county, found his transitional benefit reduced without any alteration whatever in his circumstances. I have also full details of the scales and conditions acted upon by one large authority in the county. Under these small savings are not penalised as they are in the county. For instance, savings up to £100 are exempt and income at 5 per cent. on balance is taken into account. Further allowances are made on a more generous scale. The importance of this lies in the fact that the Public Assistance Committee of the county shelters itself behind the Order in Council and contends that its scales and conditions are the limit permitted by that order. That this must be inaccurate is shown by the fact that other authorities are permitted to continue and act upon the same Order in Council much more generously and sympathetically. What they are doing can be done by the county council if the will to do it be there.
That letter is from a man who sits on the county council and he has voiced his protest in public because he is not able to use his influence in the county council. The council of the administrative county consists of 140 aldermen and county councillors. Of this number fewer than 30 have Labour views. The other 120 are made up of Independents, who are always against us, diehard Tories or Liberals. They are taking an outlook on those matters which we say was not meant by the administration of the means test. I would like to refer to one further protest which I have received from representatives of the textile unions in the Ashton area who met last night and passed a resolution describing as:
unduly harsh and unnecessary the conditions imposed by the Lancashire County Council when dealing with transitional benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Act.
All round we are getting protests against what is called the unfair administration of the means test.
I have pointed out the population of the two areas and I should like to give a few figures in regard to administration. The percentage of cases granted full benefits in the Lancashire County Council area is 17.4 and in the County Borough areas 28.4. Partial benefits in the administrative county have been granted to 56.5 applicants and to 53.5 in the county boroughs. Those who have been disallowed benefit represent in the administrative county area 26.1 per cent. and in the county borough areas 18.1 per cent. Those are the latest figures which I have been able to get from the period from 12th November, 1931, to 20th February, 1932. If the Minister has any later figures that will show that the comparative figures are more in keeping with each other, then I shall be satisfied that our protests are doing some good, but if the figures are not coming nearer together and this big divergence continues in the payment in the different areas, then satisfaction cannot be obtained throughout Lancashire. I do not want the Minister to say at this juncture, as I believe has been said by some representatives of the Government, that some county boroughs are more generous than they ought to be. It has been urged that my protests may mean that the more generous county boroughs will be brought down to the level of the meaner ones. I hope the Minister will not agree to that and that he will regard our protests as genuine. If our protests are set on one side I can promise him that there will be far more trouble in the future than he has had from these benches up to now.
We are not getting away from the dreadful position of unemployment. I had thought that I might have been wrong in my ideas of the Government and that there might be some temporary success in their policy and that the unemployment figures might become less during that temporary success, but I find that that is not so. The latest figures which were given the other day show that there were 2,747,343 people on the registers of the Employment Exchanges. That is apart from those who have lost their claim for transitional payments and who probably have not signed on. The Minister may not know this
fact but it is true that many people who have been struck off transitional payment do not sign on at the Employment Exchanges. They are a lost section for the time being. From 100,000 to 200,000 people who have lost transitional payment are not signing on. They refuse to go out and sign, because they are disgusted. Of the total unemployed 51 per cent. or 1,400,000 are applying for full insurance benefit, and 38 per cent. or 1,042,000 are applying for transitional benefit. This latter number of 1,000,000 come within the category that I have been describing this morning and it is a question whether they will get justice from the men who are administering the means test. We disagree entirely with the Government in the application of the means test, although we realise that it is an Act of Parliament and has to be carried out. As such we have impressed upon our men that it is their duty to serve on the Committees.
When the Government carried their legislation with regard to the means test there was such feeling in my Division that I had the greatest difficulty in meeting my people and in urging upon them the necessity of carrying out the work. I said to them "If you are public men it is not right to refuse to carry out any Act of Parliament. Sit on the committees and do the best you can. Find out the weaknesses and let us know what they are. If injustices are being meted out we can call attention to the fact in the House of Commons and ask the Minister to remedy them." I am glad that the Labour party have managed to prevail on their people in the country to carry out the working of the means test and to get the best out of it and they are doing that. But they feel very disgusted when they have sat on the committees and given a decision, and when that decision goes to a superior authority for sanction it is upset. The local people deal with the cases according to the best of their knowledge and they grant payment, but when the matter goes to Preston before 140 people the majority of them take a very different outlook. That is not right.
I ask the Minister of Labour to try to do something to regulate this matter more thoroughly than it has been regulated in the past. That is the protest we make. This is a matter of great importance to these people, and they are
anxiously waiting to see what we will do in this matter. There are thousands, bordering on 1,000,000, people who are wondering what will happen about this claim which we are making this morning. In the Recess, many of us will be addressing meetings, and the question in the minds of our audiences will not be what has happened at Lausanne or the disarmament policy. The first thing asked will be, "What am I getting from the Employment Exchange? Is this right or fair?" You may talk about Lausanne and the high ideals you are trying to attain, but it does not appeal to the man who is feeling the want of food. He says to us, "Do something for the people at home first, and then we will be ready to deal with those high ideals when we have got a decent meal to eat." I am making my appeal; I know it does not hold the same status as the Debate of yesterday, but to us it is of far more importance, and we are putting it forward in the hope that the Minister of Labour will consider that our claim is just and right.

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: Every Member of the House, I think, will agree that we have listened to a very reasonable statement put in a very helpful way. There is only one point on which I disagree with the hon. Member. I have no objection to the means test as such. I think no one can complain of the legal obligation that when a man makes a claim his means should be inquired into, but I want to say a few words with regard to the administration of the means test, because I think there is a distinction between the two things. In the first place, so far as concerns Bradford, one of the divisions of which I represent, I believe that even the Labour members of the committee which is regulating this question agree that there is a very generous administration of the Act. That is the information given to me by one of the members of the committee. The only complaint, or, rather, I will say, the chief complaint is regarding the instructions, or lack of instructions, given to them by the Minister. I want this morning to appeal to the Minister to give definite instructions regarding the computation of income. I believe that it is impossible to lay down a flat rate for the whole of the country. I believe it is true to say that, whereas one rate
might be too small for one area, it might be exceedingly generous for another area; but I believe that it is possible to obtain unification in the classification of income when assessing benefit.
I would draw the attention of the Minister to certain cases of hardship which have been brought to my notice. Let me assume that there are three men living next door to each other, all following the same occupation and all having enjoyed the same wages. The first man during his employment has spent all the money which he has earned. There is no question with regard to that man's case. He gets relief. The second man has saved a little and bought his own house. You take the rent of the house as being income. The third man has refused to put his money into a house, and has put it into a bank. Then you come along to the third man and say to him that over and above the sum of—I think I am accurate in saying in Bradford—£50 is to be spent before making any claim. I do not think it would be a great loss to the public exchequer if you were to count as a man's income the interest on his savings. Suppose, for instance, a man had £200 and the interest was calculated at 5 per cent., that would be £10 a year, or about 4s. a week; or, if £500, it would be £25 a year, or approximately 10s. a week. Could not some such arrangement be made?
It would have these two effects. In the first place, the man who has been thrifty asks me, "What has been the use of my thrift?" Is it the policy of the Government to encourage the working man to be thrifty or not? The second thing I find occurring is that some of these men when they have a doubt about being kept in employment for a certain length of time, transfer their savings to another member of the family. This sort of thing is actually occurring. Suppose a man knows there is some doubt about being employed beyond a given time. He knows that his savings will be calculated in the award that is going to be made to him, so he says to a daughter or a son, "I am going to give you this money," and thereby he gets over that difficulty. I do not want to encourage anyone by any word of mine to be dishonest, but I must confess that if I were in that position I should feel that I was being treated very hardly in comparison with a man
who had not cared a rap the whole of his life, but had spent his money as he had gone along.
I have a case in mind, that of a personal friend of mine. I know it is an absolutely genuine case. He has worked for one firm for more than 40 years. That firm, unfortunately, has gone into liquidation. He has paid into the fund ever since the insurance scheme came into being. During that time he has been a very thrifty individual, being a good Wesleyan, and he has put a little bit away during the whole of the time. Now he comes to the point when he needs to draw on the fund. He has drawn for 26 weeks, and then is told to go home and spend the whole of the money he has saved during 30 or 40 years. The man is a very reasonable, hard-working man, but he says, "What is going to happen to me when I become 60 years of age, and too old for work?" Having spent all that he has saved, at the end, as a reward for his thrift, he has to go into the pauper class.
Here is another typical case. It is also a case personally known to me. The man is willing to work. There is no question about that, for I know the man. It is not a case that has been brought to me; I have known the man for years. He has a, married daughter living with him, and the whole of the income of the married daughter and son-in-law is taken as being the income of the family. Suppose that man had lodgings with a lady, not his daughter, and her husband, it would be a, different computation altogether. I take it that in law, when a, daughter marries, the father loses the responsibility. Unfortunately, when she marries, so far as this law is concerned, she is still responsible for her parents.
I would draw attention to something which is rather a tragedy. The Act in some cases is having a bad effect on family life in Bradford. I know of many cases where men have to depend on one or two children to keep the home going, and, although I am not defending the action of the son or daughter, I know of cases where sons and daughters have left home because of having to keep their parents. [An HON. MEMBER: "Shame!"] It is a shame. I am not defending such action for a moment. I think it is a disgrace to any son or daughter. But it is having an opposite effect, because I know of
parents who are turning out their sons and daughters. Is it not possible for the right hon. Gentleman to give instructions somewhat more generous in character? It is only a minority of people who want something for nothing. If ever it comes to the day when I have to look to my daughter to keep me, it will be a tragedy for me. We are putting men into a very difficult position. They have to creep into their home almost apologising for existing.
Let me reiterate what I have said about penalising thrift. We are always told that the right hon. Gentleman possesses a kindly heart, but he also possesses a wonderful way of shifting the burden of responsibility when a question is put to the local authorities, and when I speak to the local authorities they have a happy knack of shifting it back to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not like this Box and Cox attitude. I believe that the authorities are trying to carry out the instructions given by the right hon. Gentleman but, although I claim to have a certain amount of intelligence, I must confess that in some cases no one can say definitely what the instructions mean. I have read all the instructions given on this particular subject and, quite honestly, my education must have been neglected, because someone in the Department has a wonderful gift of writing something which no one can understand. I notice that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health points across to hon. 12.30 p.m. Members opposite, suggesting that I should transfer that criticism to them. Whoever is responsible, it is not the principal point. The Government cannot shift the responsibility on to the Opposition for what is occurring now. Nothing is gained by merely making debating points across the Floor of the House.

ROYAL ASSENT.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER: reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Appropriation Act, 1932.
2. Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932.
3. National Health Insurance and Contributory Pensions Act, 1932.

ADJOURNMENT (SUMMER).

Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: There was a certain right hon. Gentleman who said yesterday that his only claim to be listened to was that he was an old Member, and he had the same experience as I have had this morning, of having his speech broken in two. I wondered what crime I had committed, Mr. Speaker, when you cried out "Order!" just now. I do not want to go over all my points again. The request that I am making to the Minister is for a more generous treatment in this particular matter. Every Member of the House recognises the financial difficulties of the Government at the moment. It is perfectly true that the country cannot go on spending money ad lib, but I believe that in all questions of economy, particularly in these cases, it is not true economy to bring these men and women down to a state of pauperism. I believe that we are going to pay dearly in a loss of health in future if we bring these people to a terribly low standard of living. I ask that these people be treated not so much as criminals, but as unfortunate people who for the moment find themselves in difficult circumstances.
I have always felt that it was an unfortunate thing to have handed over the administration of this particular question to public assistance committees. Yorkshire men are apt to be of a very independent turn of mind, and it is a tragedy to our people when they have to appeal to the Poor Law. I think this system has had a very bad psychological effect. I believe it would have been far wiser, even if it were the same body, to have set it up independently of the Poor Law. If we could do anything to take away the feeling that people are asking for charity, which perhaps may be true, we can take away the feeling of bitterness. Will the Minister give way to the requests from every side of the House that there be some uniform instructions given with regard to the computation of income, and also that these people be treated as generously as the financial conditions of the time permit?

Mr. BUCHANAN: I wish to speak on the means test and to raise matters which may concern the Department of the Minister of Health. I cannot
agree with the last speaker in many of the points that he has made. Once we accept the principle of a means test, a test must be made. That involves the setting up, no matter whether the test be generous or mean, of a huge staff for administration and investigation. Assuming that the test be a generous test, nevertheless every claim must be investigated. The result is that if you have a generous scale you still have all this expenditure on administration and investigation just the same as if you had a mean scale. If you have a generous scale, your savings, when offset against the huge cost of administration, are so little as not to be worth while. Once you go into the question of the means test you find that there is no half-way house in this matter. You have either to be mean or else it is not worth while having a means test at all and you might as well abolish it. The Minister in his anxiety to cut down expenditure has altered the arrangement by which each case was reviewed at certain intervals in the interests both of the applicant and of the Department. It used to be at intervals of a month. He has now increased the interval to eight weeks, but even with that change a tremendous cost must constantly arise in respect of administration and investigation. The result is that where the scales are increased to a sufficiently high level, it means, in effect, that the means test will not be operated at all by any Government because the savings to be made from it will be so small when put against the cost of administration.
That was my constant reply to my late Labour colleagues who used to say, as the late Lord Privy Seal used to say, "What about the man with £1,000 or £2,000 or £3,000?" I have always argued that in order to catch that man you have to set up a whole department for the investigation of every claim, and I think that every Conservative will admit that a number of men possessing thousands of pounds is very small in relation to the whole number of claims. The Glasgow Corporation carried out an investigation and found that the number of people with thousands of pounds was infinitesimal as compared with the total number on benefit. To set up elaborate administrative machinery for the purpose of dealing with a few, a very few cases of that kind, would not be worth while. There-
fore, those who advocate the means test must be prepared, either to have it mean in its working or else abolish it entirely as not worth while. They have to face that alternative. It would have been easy to have had a generous scale if you had had no administrative and investigation difficulties, but the choice is as I have described it.
I see that in some quarters an. attempt is being made to apologise for the means test. A weekly Labour publication the other day, referring to criticisms passed on some of those who led the Labour party, said that they had always been against a family means test. I cannot follow that reasoning. The moment you start to go into the question as between a family means test and an individual means test you find all kinds of crosscurrents. I can see a family means test being a shockingly bad thing, but I can see an individual means test being equally bad. I think the time has come when Members of this House facing the electors ought to speak calmly and openly about this matter of the means test. We ought to state the position plainly and face the alternative of having a means test involving large administrative expenses, a means test which means in effect fearful hardships to the people concerned, or on the other hand a means test which will not effect any saving worth while. I honestly would face the implication in the latter case of abolishing it entirely and of maintaining the unemployed, not at the cost of fathers or mothers or other relatives, but at the cost of the State. If perchance a man has accumulated savings to the amount of thousands I submit it is the State's job to deal with those thousands of pounds, not by any trick in connection with unemployment benefit, but by the ordinary State mechanism of taxation.
I think that a means test must inevitably be mean but there are one or two points which I would put to the Minister in the hope that he may be induced to do something, administratively, at least to modify the present position. Under the former Unemployment Insurance Act passed by the late Labour Government one of the reforms inaugurated was that by which a person once he had received benefit was continued in benefit until the court of referees decided that the benefit was not
to be continued any longer. That was the law which applied to all unemployed insured persons, but under a recent decision that law has been altered as regards transitional benefit. Now we have this position. Under the transitional benefit arrangement a man's claim may be sub judice.. It may be before the court of referees but pending the decision of the court of referees that man is differentiated against because he is on transitional benefit. His benefit stops the moment the case is put before the court of referees and does not continue while the decision of the court is awaited. That man's position has been very much worsened. I understand that the umpire has decided that transitional benefit claims must be decided differently from standard benefit claims in this respect. As I was net sure that this matter would be raised to-day I have not had time to go into the Act with great thoroughness, but in the limited time at my disposal I have examined the position and it seems to me that the Minister has power by regulation to overcome this difficulty if he desires to do so.
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, in common fairness, at least to maintain the position for the transitional benefit man, the same as for the standard benefit claimant in this respect. Mark you, the claim has been allowed by the public assistance committee and it is not a question of the man's means. The point at issue is whether he is entitled to transitional benefit or not within the meaning of the Unemployment Insurance Act. Surely it is not too much to ask that he should be given benefit until the decision of the court of referees has been given. A man in the position I have described is hurt very much in this way. He is refused benefit. Very often the public assistance committee say: "You have been allowed benefit but we must discuss your position now that you are claiming public assistance benefit." And they do not give a decision until some days later. Then the court of referees must be given a reasonable time. The result is that for a week or 10 days the man receives nothing. Then the position arises that the public assistance committee refuses to pay the money; the Unemployment Insurance Fund refuses to
meet any obligations and the poor devil for a week or 10 days receives nothing at all.
I turn from that to a point that concerns the Minister of Health as well as the Minister of Labour. When the recent Health Insurance Act passed through this House, I raised the case of a man on sickness benefit whom it was deemed desirable to send before the regional medical officer. A man has been drawing sickness benefit, and at a certain time his approved society thinks it desirable to send him before the regional medical officer, who examines him and gives his decision that he is now fit for work. But that man—or it may be a woman—may not get that decision until a week afterwards. I have a case in my pocket in which a man did not get the decision for a week. He appeared before the regional medical officer on the Tuesday, but he got no decision until the following Tuesday. That man is in the position that he still claims to be sick, and his panel doctor says that he is sick, but the regional medical officer says that he is not sick, and the result is that the man does not apply for unemployment benefit, but he gets a note a week later saying he is now fit for work.
He has not been able to receive sickness benefit because of the decision given, but he has not signed on at the Exchange, because if he had and had then been declared to be sick, it would be practically an illegal offence, because it would be said that he was attempting to get two benefits. Therefore, he does not sign, and then, when he signs at the Exchange, he has to wait for a week. Surely the man does not need to be suspended in mid-air for days awaiting a decision. If, in the judgment of the authorities, he is fit for work, surely to goodness they can give the decision that day and allow him to sign at the Exchange the next day. If that cannot be arranged, I ask the Minister of Labour to say that that day or two should not be counted against the man in respect of benefit. This would not mean great cost or much investigation, and I think it would be but an elementary act of justice to the man.
I want to turn now to the question of seasonal workers, and I do not want the
Minister to reply that their treatment is under the Labour Govern- 1.0 p.m. ment's Act. I know that it was a deliberate, malicious Act, passed by the Labour Government to deprive seasonal workers of benefit. Neither the Labour Government nor anyone else can escape from the fact that it was done with malice and deliberation, and was meant to be done, and I hope that that will not be the answer to-day. The fact is that I feel about the means test as strongly as anybody, but about the seasonal workers I feel even worse than I do about the means test. I think the treatment of the seasonal workers is the most shocking treatment of all under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. At least there is this to be said about the means test, that a man or a woman gets 26 weeks' standard benefit for his or her payments, but what happens in the case of seasonal workers is this: I have a case which I have taken up to the Minister of Labour, of a woman who was working at a Scottish depot and who had 40 weeks' work regularly every year, and no grumble against her employers, but just for a certain period her services are suspended, and so she has been treated as a seasonal worker. A person under the means test at least gets 26 weeks' benefit, but this woman can pay year in and year out and never even get 26 weeks' benefit, and I say that it is worse even than the old rules which we fought when we first came to this House.
Under those old rules there was one week's benefit for every six weeks' contributions. The rule was called the "one in six" rule, but under the Anomalies Act that has been taken away from the seasonal workers in the most brutal and callous fashion, and I would ask the Minister, if he cannot meet us wholly with regard to the seasonal workers, whether it is not possible for him to return to the "one in six" rule for them. I do not want him to meet me in this matter by giving these people the power of exemption from insurance. Some hon. Members say, "Give them the power to exempt themselves from insurance," but I know decent seasonal workers, girls, who go to seasonal work at places like Bournemouth, Brighton, Gleneagles, and so on, who are among the very finest type of girl. Their parents in many cases are very poor, and in many cases they are without parents, and what they want is
some sort of income to keep them clean and tidy, so that they can get their job back when their unemployment period finished.
It is of the utmost importance to this House and to this country that these women should have some kind of income for a period, because, as we know, in that type of work the employers want a neat, trim girl, decently dressed and fairly attractive. A girl can only keep that way if she has some form of income to provide the necessaries of life during her unemployment period, and one of the bad things that that last Act did was that it left this girl derelict, not even subject to the means test. Her case is entirely a Poor Law charge, because she is entirely cut off from unemployment benefit. The problem at the end of this summer season is urgent. I have met decent girls who are looking to the end of this summer season with dread. Some of them approached me only the other day to see if I could get the Minister, not to give them exemption—they want to pay their contributions—but at least to put them back on the old "one in six" rule that was the Conservative rule before I entered this House.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is not possible to get something done for these seasonal workers by regulation now. It will be a terrible tragedy if in the winter time these girls are flung out of employment, their only resource being Poor Law relief, not even transitional benefit. I do not want to make people's flesh creep, but the Labour party, in passing that Act, can never have thought of the social consequences of turning a young woman of about 24 or 25, neat, good-looking, on to the great streets of our cities and towns without any income. The social consequences of such action can easily be forecast. Those responsible for it, particularly the woman Minister, will, I hope, never be treated as they have treated these poor people; it is terrible that a woman who had £4,000 a year should take benefit from people who have not a penny of income. I turn to the question of the relation of the Minister of Health to unemployment benefit. I was in Nottinghamshire recently when two decent men came to me. The great mass of people are decent; even a criminal population may be decent, and I know that it is only by an accident that I do not happen to be one
of them. So I have no theory about who is good and who is bad, and I think that it is best to treat everybody as decent. Related to what these men told me is the action of the Minister of Labour with regard to the Rotherham authority. That authority strove to pay more than the scale and to be over-generous. That is, in fact, the crime that they committed, and it is a great credit to the men who took the responsibility for it. I am not going to argue their case, but merely to contrast their action with that of the local authority who dealt with the cases of the two men I have mentioned. In one case the man was granted 18s. a week for himself and his wife, and in the other 25s. for himself, wife and three children. I asked the men if they were authentic cases, and they actually signed their names to a statement that what they said was bona fide.
I would say to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labour that if they are going to use the strong and firm hand with authorities like Rotherham for exceeding the amounts laid down, it is not too much for us to ask them to use the same firm hand to bring the reactionary authorities up to a standard of decent treatment—or, at any rate, semi-decent treatment—for the unemployed. In one or two places in Scotland the same thing is happening. When the Minister of Health spoke last he told us that he was asking authorities to meet in various parts for the sake of getting uniform administration. Can he tell us what progress has been made? There was some force in the contention of the hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holds-worth) that the Minister ought to lay down what is to be done throughout the country, but I am very doubtful about it. If the Minister intervened, the tendency would be to pull down the standard to the level of the lowest. I remember an experience of this kind of thing. We used to hold rota committees for the granting of unemployment benefit, and there was a constant demand that the Minister should issue uniform instructions to the committee. They were issued, and the effect was that the decent rota committees were pulled back to the position of the worst. I would not therefore support the issue of regulations by the Government in this matter. I would sooner have the means test administered locally because usually local administra-
tion is much kinder than national administration. I hold no brief for the means test; I would sweep it away and crush it, but Members must be very careful—

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: I want to make it quite clear that I would pray the Minister to hold his hand if it means tightening up the instructions.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The whole tendency at the moment is for tightening the expenditure of local authorities. An inquiry is going on now about the block grants, and any attempt to regulate the expenditure of local authorities from Whitehall must be in the nature of tightening up. That is what I fear very seriously. The Minister may reply that these are matters for the consideration of the Royal Commission. That used to be a joke, but it is no longer a joke; it is dead and buried. I have forgotten the number of times we have been put off with that excuse, and it is time the Government gave us some other excuse. The Commission is still sitting, and as far as one can see, is likely to go on sitting. I appeared before the Commission for a day, and that is the impression with which I left it. I could see the whole bag of tricks exposed; it is a compromise Commission which, in the nature of things, cannot make up its mind. Suppose the Commission does not report for another six or 12 months. What will be the position? I know that the Minister expected the report before this. He should not seek to deny that, because he has a reputation for straight dealing, and he ought not to allow this Commission to take it away. He expected a report from the Commission ere this, and there is not a Member of the House who is interested in this matter who has not expected the report.
The May Committee on economy, which had a much more complicated task, reported much earlier. The Minister should tell us what is to happen if the Commission do not report. He cannot for ever give us this excuse. It is time he took action. If a Commission which has been appointed to do a job does not do it the Minister ought to intervene. But, after all, the Minister knows better than I do that the report of the Commission will not matter much. The Treasury hold the
key to the problem. If the Treasury will grant a lot of money, then a generous Bill can be drafted, but if the Treasury are mean then it will be a mean Bill, and what the Commission say about the matter will not matter very much. Everybody knows that the matter will be determined by the money received from the Treasury, and is it not time that this "cod," this farce of letting commissions wrangle away at some place in Westminster, was brought to an end. They are having a right good battle there, a right good snarl. It seems impossible to get compromise. Labour men say "No" to this and employers say "No" to that.
What is to be the policy in the intervening months? The means test is causing great concern. The other day Mr. Justice McCardie drew attention to the great increase in crime and said that a grievous feature of it was that it was confined to persons under 30 years of age. I cannot speak for what goes on in England, but in my native city there is an appalling increase of crime among comparatively young men, and I say that the means test and this increase in crime are interlocked. It is not sufficient for us to say that those men should not do this or that. The House should face up to the question whether it is prepared to spend money on keeping men in prison or is prepared to spend the same amount on keeping them outside prison. We who sit here, small as we are in numbers, have fought the means test from the beginning, and will fight it to the end, because we think it is disrupting family life and the peace of the community, and we hope that the Government, if they cannot go all the way to meet us, will at least take immediate steps to carry out some of the small reforms which I have enumerated.

Mr. MICHAEL BEAUMONT: I feel sure the House will congratulate both itself and the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) on the moderate and reasonable tone of the speech he has just delivered. I do not agree with most of it, but for the first time I have heard a speech on this subject from one of the hon. Members who think with him which has really explained to me their point of view. I have never before been able to understand why it is they object so strongly to the means test in principle. I still think their attitude is illogical. The hon. Member said that he would
abolish the means test, because, however high a figure was selected, the administration was extravagant; and he went on to say that if anybody who was not claiming benefit had more than a certain amount of money he would take it from them by the means of taxation.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I said that if the country thinks it is wrong that they should have that sum of money the country should take it by means of taxation.

Mr. BEAUMONT: I quite appreciate the point of the hon. Member, but surely no one would suggest that everyone, whatever his means, should draw unemployment benefit if he happens to be out of a job. I do not suppose he would agree that if a millionaire Member of this House were rejected by the electors he ought to claim benefit as one of the unemployed.

Mr. BUCHANAN: If he were an insured person and stood in one of the long queues at an Employment Exchange waiting for it I would give him unemployment benefit—but I am very doubtful whether that would be the right place for him, and whether it should not rather he an asylum.

Mr. BEAUMONT: I have never been able to understand why we should investigate the means of a person when we are taking money from him, as we do in the case of taxation, and not employ a means test when we are giving people money. When we advocate the means test we are accused of being brutal and of insulting the unemployed. There is no such intention. I am just as sorry for the unemployed, and claim to have just as much sympathy for them, as the hon. Member opposite. I sit on a guardians' committee which administers the means test, and there I see these people, and I yield to no hon. Member opposite in the pity I feel for them, but I do not confine my pity to them only. Through no fault of their own they are in the unfortunate position of not being able to support themselves and have to look to the State for support. Our contention is that if the State, that is the individuals who are in a position to support themselves, have to support these other people, they have a right to know beyond question that they are deserving of support, and they can only know that through some form of means test. It may be
argued that the present means test is too low or too high, but I cannot see how any hon. Member can justify the giving away State money, which means other people's money, unless it is known that the money is needed and will be well spent. To my mind that is the full and complete justification of the means test.
The hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holdsworth) made a speech to which we all listened with interest and sympathy. I hope he is not now going away. He pointed out the hardships of some of these people, and said that he would feel it to be a dreadful thing if the time came when he had to be supported by his daughter. I quite agree with him. I have not a daughter, but I have a son, and I should dislike to have to be supported by him, but it must be remembered that those who are receiving this money are being kept by other people's sons and daughters. I want hon. Members and their friends to realise that the money does come from other individuals. They may argue that we cannot hurt the Surtax payer very much, although I think that view is wrong, because a tax on the richer members of the community is reflected to the full among the poorer members of the community.
I come from a constituency where, for the first time in the depression that has lasted so long, serious unemployment is only just beginning to rear its ugly head. We have not had it to the extent to which other hon. Members from other parts of the country have known it, but it is coming now. Four cases out of five that one encounters on Monday morning, one can attribute directly to the highness of taxation in this country, and to the consequent decrease in purchasing power. The hon. Member for Gorbals makes speeches in which he rightly says that he represents his constituents and is trying to put their case. I do not think he will grudge me my right to say that it is taxation which is producing this hideous thing, and no one better than hon. Members opposite knows what a hideous thing unemployment is. I shall be pleased to show any hon. Members any Monday morning what is happening in my constituency. It is right that I should resist, on behalf of those people, anything that is going to produce more Government expenditure or more taxa-
tion, and therefore more unemployment. That is the stand taken by those who support the Government in their economy measures. I yield to no one in my sympathy for those people, and I know that there are many hard cases which I hope will be dealt with, if possible.
I want particularly to join with the hon. Member for Gorbals in the case which he made about the sick man. It is a question of administrative difficulty, and I confess that I do not see how it is to be got over. That is not the case of a man receiving benefit when he ought not to have it, but of his not receiving it when it is the intention of everybody that he should receive it. If that case can be dealt with, I shall be grateful. I ask the Government that, in yielding to the sympathetic appeals made by hon. Members in all parts of the House to deal with the genuinely hard cases, which no one can listen to without sympathy, they should realise that there is a financial crisis at this moment, and that, if they yield to those, out of generosity, from public funds, they are simply aggravating the evils. It will be far better to cure the disease than to have a constant application of bandages, which worsen the disease, and which must ultimately come to an end.

Mr. CHARLES BROWN: I want to raise matters concerning the administration of transitional payment, particularly two matters arising in the area in which I live and which affects my own constituency. They arise, to some extent, out of an answer given to me on 30th June by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour. I asked him if he was aware
That the Mansfield Guardians Area Committee have refused to continue the determination of transitional payments to the unemployed; if he will state the reasons for this refusal; and what steps he has taken to deal with the situation.
In his reply the Minister of Labour said:
The Mansfield Guardians Committee of the Nottingham County Council ceased to carry out their statutory duties after illegal determinations given by them had been revised by the public assistance committee of the council. The Public Assistance Committee have now appointed an emergency committee under powers conferred by them by the Order in Council, to discharge the functions of the Guardians Committee in relation to transitional payment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1932; col. 1983, Vol. 267.]
I have read the answer because—and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman did it consciously—his answer was a distortion of the facts of the situation. To make that quite clear, I shall have to make one or two references to the Nottinghamshire county scheme in general. For the purpose of administration in Nottinghamshire, the county council has htherto had five area guardians' committees, of which Mansfield was one, and, for administrative reasons, the Mansfield area committee is broken up into four sub-committees in order 1.30 p.m. to make the determinations for transitional payments and for relief. There are about 20, or slightly more, of these sub-committees functioning in the various parts of the county. I want to read a passage from the report of the public assistance officer for 29th December, 1931. In that report, he says:
With the exceptions of the Mansfield Woodhouse and Hucknall District sub-committees, I am satisfied that, generally speaking, the applications have been dealt with in the manner laid down in the Order and Regulations of the Minister of Labour, i.e., 'as if they were estimating the need of an unemployed able-bodied person who applies for public assistance'.
The only question at that stage was that the three sub-committees mentioned in the report were being challenged because of the nature of the determinations that they were making. It is true that those two sub-committees had given 100 per cent. favourable determinations. I will not submit that, in the case of these two sub-committees. I am not challenging that point at all. Following upon that, the public assistance committee received a letter from the Ministry of Labour which I think I had better read. I am quoting now from the minutes of the Nottinghamshire County Council:
The following letter with regard to the administration of the Order has been received by the clerk of the county council from the Ministry of Labour: 'I am directed by the Minister of Labour to state for the information of your council that he has received a report, from the general inspector of the Ministry of Health for your area, from which it appears that the guardians' sub-committees'"—
I want the Minister to note this—
'in the Mansfield Woodhouse and Hucknall areas have adopted methods in determining the needs of applicants for transitional payments which do not appear to be in conformity with Article 1 (4) of the Unemployment Insurance (National Economy) (No. 2)
Order. As your council are aware, this Article requires a committee or sub-committee, in determining the needs of an applicant for transitional payments to make certain inquiries and otherwise deal with the case as if they were estimating the need of an unemployed able-bodied person who had applied for public assistance. The Minister understands that your council have the matter under active consideration, but he would be glad to be favoured with a report at your early convenience on the steps which the council propose to take to secure compliance with the law on the part of these sub-committees'.
Before making any comment, I want to call attention again to the fact that in the sub-committee minutes of 2nd February, from which I am now reading, the public assistance officer of the county of Nottinghamshire reported in the terms which I quoted in the early part of my speech. I would ask the Minister to bear these things in mind while I put my argument to him. Up to 19th March, so far as I have been able to ascertain, nearly 25,000 cases have been dealt with by the guardians or their committees in Nottinghamshire. Mansfield area committee have dealt with 9,813 cases, of which 8,975 had the full rate of benefit, 773 had part rate of benefit, and 65 were refused Here I think I had better quote some other figures, because Nottinghamshire is very much different in its different areas. There is an industrial area and an agricultural area. I have given the figures for the industrial area. The figures for the agricultural area are that 1,313 cases have been dealt with, 947 being given the full rate of benefit, 268 part benefit, and 113 being refused.
The upshot of the Minister of Labour's letter was that the county council set up a revision committee, presumably on the evidence I have submitted, to revise the determinations made by the two subcommittees whose determinations had been called into question. All that I want to say about those two committees is that one of them was functioning in a small, exclusively mining township where there has been depression since the lockout in 1926, and the other was functioning in Hucknall, a mining town with other subsidiary industries, but of which the main industry is mining. Those are the two committees which have given 100 per cent. of favourable determinations. The revision committee of the Nottinghamshire County Council, which had been set up in response to the letter
of the Ministry of Labour, began its work on the 5th May. I have the reports here, and could give all the facts, but I will not do so, as I know that others want to take part in the discussion. At its first meeting, the committee only dealt with the two sub-committees to which attention had been called, namely, those of Hucknall and Mansfield Woodhouse. On the 20th May, however, it brought the work of another sub-committee under review, and on the 28th May it was reviewing the determinations of five different sub-committees, against which previously, so far as I know, the Ministry of Health inspector had made no complaint.
The Mansfield Guardians' Committee, as a protest against the drastic revisions which were being made by this committee, even in determination made by committees whose action up to this stage had not been challenged by the public assistance officer of the county council, resigned as a protest against the cuts which were being made by this revision committee, and then the county council proceeded, as the right hon. Gentleman informed us in reply to a question the other day, to appoint what was called a special urgency sub-committee, which proceeded to make the determinations which the Mansfield Guardians' Area Committee had refused to do. I have here an account of the results of its activities. It had a sitting on the 22nd June, to which I want to make particular reference. On that day the Committee sat for four hours and dealt with 951 cases—at the rate of four a minute. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he thinks that a committee sitting in the City of Nottingham, the members of which are in the main unfamiliar with the facts of the situation in the areas to which I have referred, can deal with cases at the rate of four a minute and ensure that justice shall be done to those who are in need of transitional payments? It more than astonished me to see in a local paper on Friday, the 24th June, the report of a speech made on Friday, the 17th June, in Mansfield—a speech made at the opening of a new wing of a conservative club. It was made by Lord Galway, a member of the Nottingham County Council and a member of this public assistance committee. In the course of his speech, he said—I am not deriding his views—
We do not want the Government to have to intervene and send officials down to settle Mansfield's business. We think that Mansfield should be perfectly capable of looking after its own affairs, but I have this from the Minister of Labour himself, that, unless we get this thing put right and the 'dole' administered in Mansfield as it should be, the Government will have no hesitation in taking the strongest action and sending representatives down to see that the work is properly carried out.
I notice that many hon. Members opposite frequently express, not only in this House but outside, their passion for the observance of the law. That is always noticeable, and is not unjustifiable, in their speeches. Whether there is always the same enthusiasm for justice and equity in dealing with the need of the unfortunate victims of the economic system under which we live, is an entirely different matter. I want to ask the Minister what is the real reason why this abnormal pressure—I do not think I exaggerate—has been brought to bear in the case of the Nottinghamshire Public Assistance Committee? Is it that the Ministry of Labour, regardless of the needs of some of the unemployed, have decided to effect so much savings in each division of the country; and is it in pursuance of that policy that they are determined in certain areas to push the committees to a point where they will make the necessary savings? Are they determined to extract from these various areas their respective quotas towards the amount of savings that they wish to make? All kinds of quotas are fashionable nowadays, but I thought that the unemployed, having regard to the cuts in their benefit which have already been made, had contributed their quota to national economy, and that it was entirely unnecessary that further pressure such as I have illustrated in this case should have been brought to bear on this particular public assistance committee.
There is an interesting corollary to all this. I was present at the meeting of the public assistance committee on the 28th June, and I heard the chairman of the finance committee read out some estimates for the next six months. I found that in those estimates there was a sum—I know that this will be paid by the Ministry of Labour and is not coming out of the county rate; I do not want to be regarded as creating that impression—there was a sum of £1,200 for the
payment of salaries to the officials of the Ministry of Labour who have been loaned to the public assistance committee for this work in the county of Nottingham; and, in addition to that, the finance committee recommended that grants amounting to £230 should be made to the relieving officers for the special work they have performed in regard to transitional payments and £60 to the indoor staff for the special work that they have performed. I want to ask the Minister, is he quite sure that the results which he will obtain from the methods which are being pursued will justify the expense involved? Is it merely a matter of taking something from the unemployed who are in dire need in order to pay gratuities and salaries to officials because they are carrying out this process?
It seems to me that all this pettifogging inquisition which is going on, with all the paraphernalia of a revision committee and an emergency sub-committee, all in the name of economy, is nothing less than a scandal. What does it amount to in effect? You are really setting up in regard to this matter a new dictatorship of officials. The Minister knows how these guardians' area committees are constituted. He knows that they are constituted of representatives elected by local authorities in the area. He will know that the Mansfield Town Council have six, the Mansfield Woodhouse Urban District Council four, and the Sutton-in-Ashfield Urban District Council a similar number; and so I could go on over the whole area. He knows very well that these are the only people, and that they are only indirectly elected on to these bodies. He knows very well that all these authorities, like the Mansfield Town Council, the Mansfield Woodhouse Urban District Council, and the Warsop Urban District Council are protesting against the action of the county council towards their representatives on these particular bodies. I want to know from the Minister if it is a fact that the pressure which is being exerted on the Nottinghamshire County Council is coming from his Department, with the sheer deliberate intention of effecting a certain amount of saving in that area.
I gave notice yesterday at Question Time of another matter which I wanted to raise to-day, affecting the Ministry of Labour. I will deal with it very
briefly. It has to do with a question which the Minister answered for me yesterday with regard to German workers coming into the hosiery trade in this country, and it particularly concerns my constituency. I had better explain briefly to the House that my constituency, until relatively recently, was the centre of the fine-gauge full-fashioned silk hosiery industry in this country. These machines pan be made in this country, but that is not the point that I want to stress at the moment. Since the Silk Duties of 1924–25 I am quite prepared to admit that this section of the hosiery industry has had a relatively prosperous period and, when we returned to the Gold Standard in 1925, it was obvious that the relatively high purchasing power of our money on the Continent contributed in some degree to the hosiery manufacturers wanting to import machinery from Germany. In July, 1931, I put a question to the President of the Board of Trade about the importation of this machinery, and I was informed that the following quantities had been imported, in 1926 355 tons—the number of machines is not specified in the Board of Trade return. To give an idea of the number of machines involved, the average weight of one is somewhere about five tons. In 1926 there were 355 tons imported, in 1927 582, in 1928 1,286, and in 1929 1,536 tons.

Mr. CAPORN: Not all fine gauge.

Mr. BROWN: Not all, but a large proportion. On 28th June I put a question to the President of the Board of Trade and was informed that in 1930 there were 85.4 tons imported, in 1931 820 tons, and in the first quarter of 1932 615 tons. I have no objection whatever to mechanics and fitters coming to erect this machinery in this country if they are bona fide carrying out the job of erecting it and getting it to work, but I cannot understand the number of permits granted to Germans to come here in connection with this machinery. I have recently put to the Minister three questions about German mechanics. I was told yesterday that, for the 854 tons of machinery that came in in 1930, approximately—presumably the Department do not get accurate records—20 erectors and technical workers came in. In 1931, for the 826 tons, approximately 20 men came in. For the first quarter of 1932 there were 615 tons of machinery and 60 Germans came in for
that period. To me these are astonishing, figures, because these machines are only a modification of an English patent which has been operated in this area for the last 50 years. The only difference between the fine gauge and the coarser gauges is a slight difference in the gadgets on the machine. Any skilled operator in the district could be put on to manipulate the new gauge in a few hours. Some of these machines are being operated by Germans unnecessarily in actual production. The Continental method of manufacturing hosiery is different from ours in this sense that on the Continent you have a machine with semi-skilled labour and perhaps a mechanic in charge. No manufacturer here who valued the quality of his goods would want for a moment to introduce the Continental method.
Will the Minister take special care that these permits are only granted in future for short periods to mechanics and fitters who come to erect the machinery, because in the local area I am convinced that instructors are not necessary? They may be necessary if you get a new factory on the outskirts of London or Liverpool, but inside the recognised hosiery area they are not. I do not want these Continental workers operating these machines in this country and introducing a new system which will definitely lower the standard of our own operatives.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton): I can assure the hon. Member that I am just as anxious as he is that no foreigner should come over here to take a job which can just as well be done by an Englishman or woman. The question about which he is in doubt is as to whether we have not, perhaps, let in more foreigners to do work which he thinks could be equally well done by native labour. This is a matter which we have under our scrutiny, but it must not be forgotten that, according to my recollection, there are German machines and, if you put someone who is unaccustomed to them before he is taught how to work them, you may not only be doing harm to the machines but may be defeating the very object that you have in view. A second point is this. Clearly it is to the interest of this country to encourage foreign capital to come over and, if foreign capital employs British labour, which we hope it will do, and which it is in fact doing, that is a matter which also must be borne in mind, but I am
quite willing to discuss personally with the hon. Member—because we have precisely the same object in view—this question of foreigners coming into the district which he represents. Of course, the time of the permit is limited in each case—sometimes 12 months, sometime six—but I am quite ready to discuss that with him in order to achieve our common object.

Mr. CAPORN: Will my right hon. Friend also consult with the local manufacturers of the machines, with Black-burns', for instance, to see how far they can supply them?

Sir H. BETTERTON: I will certainly do that. If we can do anything to avoid what the hon. Member thinks is a disservice to his own constituents, I will certainly see what we can do.
With regard to the question of the Mansfield sub-committee, the position, as far as the Ministry of Labour is concerned, is quite clear. We look to the county councils throughout their jurisdiction to see that the law is obeyed. In the case of Mansfield, the committee declined to do any further work at all or to act in accordance with the instructions of the county council, and the council thereupon appointed another committee to administer their statutory duties, and this was clone with the full responsibility of the county council. But I cannot think the hon. Member is serious when he suggested that I had laid down or was considering laying down a quota for any particular area. There is not a syllable of truth in that. I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman, when he made such a suggestion, did not believe it himself. The hon. Gentleman also asked whether the Ministry of Labour had loaned officials to the public assistance committee. Of course, they have not, and I am sure that he knew the answer to the question before he asked it. The hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate raised the question which has often been raised before of discrepancies in Lancashire. He put the point very fairly and clearly and gave certain particulars. He said that, according to the figures which he had, the county council percentage of nil assessments in February was 26 per cent., and that the nil assessments in the county boroughs in February was 18, and, there-
fore, on that he drew the conclusion that the administration in the counties was more stringent than the administration in the boroughs. That was the point he put.

Mr. TINKER: I tried to show that the difference was felt during the period from November to February, and that it was not merely confined to the month of February.

Sir H. BETTERTON: I meant to say up to February. The hon. Member went on to say that he would be satisfied if he could be assured that those two administrations would be brought more nearly together in order that the discrepancies might be smoothed out or reduced. I am satisfied that very much has been done both in Lancashire and in other parts of England by means of discussion and deputation, and by the assistance of hon. Members like the hon. Gentleman himself, to remove discrepancies, or to smooth out what, to begin with, no doubt, seemed to be a discrepancy between one area and another. The latest figures I have with regard to Lancashire relate to the 4th June, and I will give them to the hon. Member in order that he may see how considerably those discrepancies have been reduced. He has said that up to February the percentage of county council nil assessments was 26. In June they were 23 per cent., so that therefore the proportion with regard to the county has gone clown. With regard to county boroughs—and he stated that the average for the county of Lancashire was 18 per cent. of nil assessments up to February—if you take six county boroughs of Lancashire, you will find that the nil assessments of Blackburn were 19 per cent., Bolton, Burnley, and Bury 29 per cent., Oldham 21 per cent., and Preston 31 per cent. He will see that the process which he has been urging for so long is going on and that the discrepancies are being reduced. I think that it is very creditable both to the authorities in the county and in the boroughs that they are arriving at a more uniform method of dealing with the matters before them.
I only intend to say a word or two about the speech of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). The hon. Gentleman raised a very technical point relating to a gap in the case of transitional
payment between the time when the claims stopped, arid the tran- 2.0 p.m. sitional payment began. He said that there was an umpire's decision which covered that point. I can assure him that if it be true, as he suggests, that I can by regulation do anything to remove what appears to be an injustice, I will inquire into it, and, if I can, I will do it. But I have not the decision of the umpire in mind, and as the point is very technical I would rather not say more. The second point he made was with regard to seasonal workers. The hon. Member has referred to cases in which he thinks that grave injustice is being done by the rigorous operation of the Act. He asked me what is the position if the Royal Commission do not report this year, next year or at all. The position is that on the 30th June or the beginning of July, to all intents and purposes, the present legislation in regard to unemployment insurance, including the Anomalies Act, comes to an end, and unless something is done by the end of June—I am speaking from memory—my impression is that there will be no benefit paid to anyone after the end of June unless the House legislates in order to provide for it. Therefore, he may be assured that the questions and the very technical points he has raised will be considered by me.

Mr. BUCHANAN: What about the sickness?

Sir H. BETTERTON: I prefer to read what the hon. Member said in the OFFICIAL REPORT in order to see exactly what the hon. Member had in mind. Every point will be considered before new legislation, which is inevitable in the next seven or eight months, is drafted.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously believe that we can get the report?

Sir H. BETTERTON: I certainly do not say that I do not expect a general report. I said that the responsibility is the responsibility of the Government, and that before the end of June they will have to legislate, and the points which the hon. Member has raised will be borne in mind. Much of the Debate has really proceeded upon the footing that the transitional payments are benefits. They are not benefits. I have said over and over
again—and it has been said in this Debate to-day—that those payments are in fact relief. When the hon. Gentleman tells us that we have been harsh in deciding when benefits should stop and when transitional payments should begin, I would remind him of the position. This is very relevant to the point which has also been raised as to whether this thing is really right or wrong. As the House knows, the right to benefit is deemed to cease after 26 weeks. Let me remind the House that a man, wife and three children, under benefit scales, get 29s. 3d. per week. Benefit for 26 weeks at that rate costs £38. To provide that £38 absorbs six years' contributions, of which the employed person only pays one-third. If we take the employed person's own contributions, it would require 18 years at 10d. a week to produce that £38. I cannot say that I think that that is an ungenerous scale or that 26 weeks is, in the circumstances, an unfair term at which to put the right to insurance benefit. In Germany, which perhaps is a country with a system more resembling our own than any other country—of course there are many points of difference—they, like we, until comparatively recently had a 26 weeks' limit. They found it necessary to reduce the 26 weeks to 20 weeks. There was also a proposal, which I understand has since been made statutory, by an emergency decree, which reduced the period from the original 26 weeks to six weeks. Therefore as compared with Germany our system is far and away more generous to the unemployed person.
It must be obvious to anyone that it would be unfair to pay relief, which is what transitional payments are, State relief, to persons without any inquiry as to whether or not they need it. That would be unfair to a large class of persons who are not insured at all and whose weekly income or wage is perhaps little more than that which is received in benefit. Take the agricultural labourer. I am not concerned to argue the rate of wage of the agricultural labourer—I wish it was higher—but I am just stating the facts. In many parts of the country the statutory wage of the agricultural labourer at this moment is not more than 30s. a week. The agricultural labourer may have himself, his wife, and three children, and possibly a great many more
children, to keep out of his 30s. a week. Furthermore, the agricultural labourer is a very highly skilled man and deserves as well of this country as any other. How can we pay that 29s. 3d. a week to an insured person without inquiry as to whether he needs it or not, when a whole class are getting practically the same amount as the 29s. 3d. which is given to an insured man, his wife and three children?
A second class of person to whom it would be unfair to make this payment without inquiry as to means is the very small Income Tax payer. We were compelled last October to produce revenue by a variety of ways and one of the means by which we were compelled to produce revenue was by greatly lowering the Income Tax scale. That demand which we made has been an embarrassment to many men and their families throughout the whole year. It may mean that some little luxury or some short holiday has to be abandoned in order to meet that payment. The Income Tax which they pay goes to the general revenues of the country. How can we then, in justice, pay out of the revenues of the country to people without inquiry as to whether or not they need it a sum which is relatively little lower than the income of those who help to provide the money?
A third class of person to whom it would be very unfair to pay out under the name of transitional payment moneys without any inquiry as to means, is the insured person himself, the man who may be in receipt of standard benefit. It must be unfair to ask a man to subscribe perhaps all his life or for many years to a fund out of which perhaps he has drawn nothing until the present slump came, and then to tell him that he is to get just the same amount as the man who is drawing transitional payment, without any inquiry as to whether the recipient of that transitional payment needs it or not. These are the grounds upon which it seems to me the means test is justifiable. With regard to the administration, as I began by saying to the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) and other hon. Members, as far as I can, within the limits of my power which do not extend, as the hon. Member below the Gangway suggested, to the issuing of instructions, I have done and I am doing
all that I can to ensure that indefensible discrepancies shall be smoothed out and that this matter shall be administered fairly and justly in the interests of all concerned.

DISTRESSED AREAS.

Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLE: I desire to raise the question of the distressed areas, as chairman of a group of Members who have been giving this matter very considerable attention as representing those areas. Time is going and other hon. Members wish to speak. Therefore I will content myself by reading a resolution which was passed by the Newcastle City Council, and forwarded to me yesterday. It states:
That this council, being of opinion that the growing burden of Poor Law services, accentuated as it is by the alarming increase in Poor Law relief due to unemployment, is becoming a menace to the industrial life of certain areas, urges the Minister of Health to institute without delay an inquiry into the working of Parts I and II of the Fourth Schedule and Section 98 (1, b,) of the Local Government Act, 1929, and to present a report thereon to Parliament, with a view to the more adequate weighting of the unemplayment factor in the calculation of the block grant under this Act.
That resolution sets forth exactly and precisely what our contentions are. Unfortunately, during the last few weeks when the Minister of Health was kind enough to receive 50 or so Members of Parliament, who went to him as a deputation, he was not able to give a definite view. He promised to consider the matter very carefully. I put a question last week asking the Minister if he had had time further to consider the question, and the answer was indefinite. We rise to-day for three months, and shortly after that the House will probably adjourn for another two or three months. The position of these areas is desperate. It is becoming gradually worse, and I do entreat the Minister to-day to give us some hope and encouragement that something practical will be done during the Recess, even if we cannot now give a definite reply.

Sir ROBERT ASKE: I wish to support the plea put forward by the hon. Member who has just spoken. There are few among the important questions which have occupied the attention of this House that are more serious in their effect on some areas of this country, and that can exceed in importance that which has just been introduced. The position
with regard to these areas in which the basic trades of our country are situated is such that there is an ever-increasing burden and an ever-increasing incapacity to bear it. These areas are being crushed between the upper and the nether millstone. On the one hand, there is a growing burden which is crippling the whole life of the community, and on the other there is no proper capacity to withstand the burden.
To indicate the nature of the problem, it is perhaps easiest to show exactly the extent to which this burden has increased. Taking the north-east coast, one of the most important areas from the point of view of the basic trades, and for the purposes of illustration taking the capital of that area, one finds that over the last two years there has been an increase in expenditure on ordinary relief of 20 per cent., amounting to no less than £30,000 a year. In able-bodied poor relief, over the same period, there has been an increase of no less than 160 per cent., the amount falling on Newcastle per annum being £85,000, and the burden of the two thus being £115,000 a year more than two years ago. That is the nature of the problem, and when one has regard to the facts that there is the deepest depression in these areas and that we have unparalleled unemployment there, one sees how hopeless it is for these areas to carry these vast additional burdens. In fact, the problem is to a large extent the problem of unemployment, and that problem as reflected in poor relief statistics. It is suggested very often that local authorities ought to put their houses in order, and ought to cut down their expenditure and enable themselves to get rid of some of the burdens which at present oppress them. There is no possibility of any relief from any of these burdens in the distressed areas.
There are four main factors in the circumstances which have resulted in an increase in the numbers of able-bodied persons, many of them up to comparatively recent days engaged in insurable trades, who are now cast on to the Poor Law. The first is a matter partly of administration and partly of the construction of the Unemployment Insurance Acts. Large numbers of men who have never done a day's work in any but insurable occupations are now cast out-
side the ambit of unemployment insurance purely on a ruling of an umpire that a man who has not done any insurable work for a certain period, the normal period being fixed at five years, is no longer regarded as a person who is normally engaged in insurable employment. In ordinary circumstances that may be a fairly reasonable working guide, but you must keep in mind the fact that in many of these areas the figures of unemployment are such that there is no chance for the majority of men to get any insurable employment at all.
Taking the staple trade of my own area, shipbuilding, there are 75 per cent. of the men out of work, and the shipbuilding yards, which at one time were hives of industry, are now destitute of any signs of activity, just as though a dead hand had been put on them, with no chance of any revival in sight. How hopeless it is to suggest that arty man in that trade is not normally engaged in insurable work because he has not had any work for a certain period of years! The numbers of such men are increasing, with the result that there are thousands of men in these depressed areas who are flung outside the area of unemployment insurance and who come on to the Poor Law because the conditions of employment are so had that there is no possibility of the majority of them getting any work at all.
In the second category are men who have always been engaged in insurable work, but strike a had spell of unemployment. After a time they may try to engage in some other work in order to provide some maintenance for themselves and their families, particularly if they have some little savings, and they engage either in a small shop or possibly in some hawking or commission business. The more energetic they are, and the more successful they may be for a time in that work, the worse their position becomes from the point of view of unemployment insurance. As soon as they strike a had patch and have to cease their little venture, they have to go off unemployment insurance because they are no longer normally engaged in insurable work. In both these directions you find large numbers of men who should be provided for by the State but who now have to come as a burden on to the local authority.
The third category consists of men who have not the requisite number of stamps to qualify for unemployment insurance benefit or transitional payments. That number is constantly increasing. While eight or ten stamps does not seem to be a great number, in these areas where three men out of every four are out of work the vast majority have no chance whatever to get even this small number of stamps. The fourth category consists of those who have been caught by the Anomalies Act, such as the persons engaged in seasonal work, and who over either the whole year or part of the year are not in receipt of any wages or benefit, and in turn come on to the Poor Law.
These four categories appear to be the root of the problem. They have their reflexes, because the persons who come off unemployment benefit in turn are less able to contribute to the maintenance of their relatives. So are the people who are hit by the means test, and so are those who are not able to earn the same wages as before. They are all less able to maintain their old folks, and possibly other relatives. The people in the North-East area are always anxious to do all they can to help their relatives and keep them off the Poor Law, but they are not able to do this to the same extent as previously, and, as a consequence, others come on to the Poor Law. Then you find, as part of the same problem of unemployment, that the drain is such that many of the leading unions have had to cut down their superannuation benefits, with the result that to that extent these people have to come on to the Poor Law. That is how these added burdens come on local areas without any possibility of the areas avoiding them. It is impossible for them to contract or reduce the expenditure which is piled up in this way. You also find new classes of persons coming on to the Poor Law. Largely due to the reduced income of the working classes there is less money going into the shops, and, as a consequence, you have a new class of shopkeeper coming on to the Poor Law. Thus you get an ever increasing burden resting on these authorities.
It is often said that the means test is responsible for these added burdens. There is no doubt that the means test is operating most harshly in all these areas on the individual. It is having two
effects. First, it is preventing many men from maintaining their strength sufficient to do their work properly, even if opportunities of employment did arise, and, secondly, it is preventing them from maintaining their dependents in a reasonable way, especially as rates all along the Tyne are extremely high; and are a first charge. At the same time one has to acknowledge that, so far as regards the burden on local authorities are concerned, which is reflected in rates, a reduction in unemployment insurance benefit and transitional payments has not added to that burden to a large extent; at any rate not so far as the area with which I am associated is concerned. In figures given to me by the public assistance committee I find that the number of persons added by the operations of the Economy Act to the number of those receiving poor relief is 146 at one time in a population in Newcastle of 280,000. It is the other matters which I have mentioned which are chiefly concerned in adding to the burdens of local authorities.
These burdens are operating in two ways. In the first place, they are preventing persons engaged in trade and business carrying on, because they are reflected in their rents. In the second place, these added burdens, which are felt first in the rates, are im- 2.30 p.m. mediately reflected in rents; and of the rents the vast proportion in Newcastle-on-Tyne is provided by poor people. The result is this, that in one of these fearfully depressed areas, with high rents and no possibility of the poor getting into cheaper houses, because there is no such thing as one vacant room in the whole of the Tyne area, a great part of these added burdens comes on those people who are Living on unemployment benefit or on transitional payments. In other words, it is a question of the poor maintaining the poor. That is the real problem. All the economy measures which have been carried, or which are contemplated, place an added burden on all depressed areas. Take the Health Insurance Act, passed a short time ago, which cuts down health insurance benefits in certain cases, and which at some future time in a year or two is likely to take away old age pensions from the poorest individuals. It simply means that the money which is cut off in that way is added to the local rates and has to be borne in the way I have indicated.
Great international measures like disarmament affect a shipbuilding area in the most direct way. At one time the building of warships was one of our stable trades, and a reduction in naval expenditure immediately meant a large amount of unemployment in our area. I am merely indicating to the House that all measures of reform and economy are having a direct effect in areas most particularly affected. With regard to the Economy Act, although as I have said the direct effects have not been great on the figures of expenditure in local areas, the indirect effects are vast, because all the millions that are saved by what are called cuts do not go any longer through the shops in the areas, there is no longer the same expenditure in commodities, and the same amount of money is not disseminated throughout the area. To that extent you have to offset, against any economies of that nature, the great unemployment which results from the fact that all those millions less are being disseminated in the community.
There is the problem. What is the remedy? There are many remedies which can be suggested. The radical remedy which those who represent these areas have advocated for many years, is the broad principle that the maintenance of the able-bodied poor should be a charge on the State and not on the locality, particularly in times of great national and world crisis, the result of which is the large army of poor, a result not due to any cause which is peculiar to an area but is due to a cause common to the whole nation. Another remedy is, of course, to increase the Exchequer grants. At present it is impossible, certainly in a short space of time, to ask for either of those remedies. The third remedy is to equalise the poor rates throughout the country. One finds, for instance, that Bournemouth has a poor rate of 10d. as against Merthyr Tydvil with a poor rate fifteen times as much. The one is able to bear a heavy burden far easier than the other. But that remedy, again, would take time.
As my hon. Friend has mentioned, the matter is not only serious but urgent. Therefore the recommendation of the group representing the industrial areas which has been giving special consideration to this matter, put forward the proposal with regard to an alteration of the weighting of population for the purpose
of calculating Exchequer grants. I would like to add as an individual opinion that it would be of immense value to these local authorities if an Amendment could be made in the Unemployment Insurance Act in the direction I have indicated, by providing what I am certain was the intention of the framers of the Act, that men should not be forced off unemployment benefit merely because they have been unemployed for a long period, when the circumstances are such that there is more than a certain percentage of unemployment in a particular area, and that men who are independent enough and brave enough to risk their savings and to strike out a line for themselves, ought not, if they fail, to be driven off the Unemployment Fund.
Lastly, in particular, in these times, when it is absolutely impossible for the majority of men to get work of any kind, the present provision insisting on a minimum number of stamps in order that men might maintain their position on the fund, either the Unemployment Insurance Fund or the Exchequer Fund, ought not to operate, and men ought not to be driven off as long as existing conditions continue. I beg to press upon the Minister and the Government the consideration of these points, and I would remind them that it is the work done in these basic areas which in the days gone by has made the industrial position of this country. The wealth which they made has been disseminated throughout the country and has largely left those areas, but since they have now come to their unfortunate days the time has arrived when the nation as a whole should redeem its obligation by shouldering a reasonable portion of the burden.

Miss WARD: I am very anxious to add a few remarks to those which have been made by the hon. Member for East Newcastle (Sir R. Aske). As he has drawn such an admirable picture of the condition of unemployment on Tyneside, there is very little need for me to say much more. I am aware that other industrial areas of the country are in a similar position to my own. The particular matter that I wish to put to the House is that we are endeavouring to press, as far as is possible, the Ministers responsible to institute at the earliest possible moment an inquiry into the allocations of the block grants under
Section 110 of the Local Government Act. I desire to pay a real tribute to the relief which has been obtained by industry under that Act. When the Act was designed and placed on the Statute Book the industrial depression in this country was in no way comparable with that of to-day. One of the most annoying features—in this I find myself rather in disagreement with the hon. Member for East Newcastle—is the fact that local authorities are facing an expenditure very greatly in excess of their estimates.
At the time of the passing of the Local Government Act, to instance Newcastle alone, the unemployment figures there were, roughly, 20,000, but to-day there are 30,000 unemployed in the city. Take my own borough of Wallsend, where is the world-famed shipyard of Swan Hunter, Wigham Richardson. In 1929 that firm employed 7,000 men; to-day it employs only 400. The tonnage of ships launched in 1929 was 100,000; to-day only one small boat of about 3,000 tons is under construction. In the engineering world the North Eastern Marine is illustrative of firms of engineering fame the world over. In 1929 it was employing 1,300 men; to-day it employs only 578. I could go on giving these pitiable records ad infinitum. But I have the faith to believe that the policy of the National Government will restore prosperity to those industries. I suggest that in the meantime it is of the most vital importance not to transfer certain responsibilities of the State on to those areas which can least afford to bear them.
At the present time Newcastle is paying £1,000 a week in Poor Law relief in excess of their estimate. I wish to examine briefly the position of the Northumberland County Council within whose area the Parliamentary Borough of Wallsend is included. As the result of a conference between the Minister of Labour and the North East Coast Public Assistance Committees I am glad to learn that the Northumberland County Council has been recommended to raise its scale of relief. I am very pleased that this has occurred because it justifies the many representations which have been made by me and by my colleagues in that area to the effect that under the operation of the means test certain very acute injustices have occurred as between one area and another. I very much hope
that the Northumberland County Council will accept the recommendation which has been made to them. But though I welcome these concessions I do not lose sight of the fact that additional money has to be found out of the rates in order to put right what is obviously a very great hardship as between one area and another.
I do not wish to take up much time in this Debate, because I know that many Members are anxious to speak. I confine my remarks to suggesting that if the Minister will take steps, as he is empowered to do, to inquire into the position in the industrial areas throughout the country, those of us who come from those districts in which the local authorities are most worried and alarmed would be able to go away from the House to-day feeling a little less anxious as to the future. A study of the figures of unemployment and the amount expended in rates bears out the statement made by the hon. Member for East Newcastle (Sir R. Aske) that the higher the rates the greater the unemployment. Hon. Members may be aware that the association known as the British Travel and Industrial Development Association which has done valiant work the world over in advertising Great Britain, has been pressed, owing to its close connection with a Government Department, to advertise the industrial areas in order to attract new industries from abroad into this country. There is very little point in advertising the advantages of those areas, where we need work more than anything else, if they are rendered almost derelict by the heavy burden of rates placed upon them. I feel certain that any inquiry instituted by the Minister will result in an increase of the appropriate multiple for calculating the weighted population under Part IV of the Third Schedule to the Local Government Act. Whether that be so or not, I beg of the Minister, with all the power at my command, not to lose the opportunity of inquiring into the condition of our distressed areas but to retrieve them from their terrible situation before it is too late and place them again in a position to compete against the rest of the world.

Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS: The case for the necessitious areas has been so graphically put by the hon. Member for East Newcastle (Sir R. Aske) and the hon. Lady the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward) that I do not propose to occupy
much time. The conditions in various parts of the country other than South Wales are certainly deplorable but I think it is recognised by most Members that South Wales has had quite a harsh time in the last five or six years. We have had to maintain a substantial number of our population, particularly our children, by means of sympathetic appeals made to what may be described as the more prosperous cities of the country. Winter after winter for the last five years we have had, from London, and from cities on the South Coast, large subscriptions to help to maintain our children, particularly by the provision of boots and clothing. For quite a Long time we were prepared to take relief from other parts of the country in the form of cast-off wearing apparel from the comparatively well-to-do members of the population.
That tale commenced five years ago. The facts are well known to hon. Members and that state of things having lasted for five years, it does not require a great imagination to be able, to appreciate how things are at the moment. The Secretary for Mines last week in reply to a question said that 68 pits had closed since October last, and that 13,000 wage earners had been employed in those pits. That kind of thing is tending to increase week by week. I have no desire to stress the points so cogently put by the hon. Member for East Newcastle in connection with this problem except to draw attention to one suggestion which the made for remedying the situation. I have before me a statement supplied by the secretary for the necessitous areas. It deals not only with public assistance but with the question of education, and that statement is a substantiation of the points made by the hon. Member for Fast Newcastle and the hon. Member for Wallsend.
We find that in Glamorgan, for instance, the rate for public assistance is 8s. 1¾d. in the pound, and the total rate of the county is 14s. 10d. in the pound. The product of a penny rate per 1,000 of population is £13 0s. 11d. To take a very extreme case on the other side. I give the corresponding figures for Surrey. Surrey has a rate for public assistance of 1s. 4d. in the pound. Its total rate for all purposes is 5s. 5½d. in the pound, and the product of a penny rate per 1,000 of the population is £39 9s. 11d. Glamorganshire is under the Burnham scale, Part 3, and its rate in the pound of net
expenditure for 1930–31, is 5s. 10½d.; the product of a penny rate per unit of average attendance is 20d.; and the net cost per child based on average attendance is £14 3s. 10d. Surrey is also under Part 3 of the Burnham scale, and its rate of net expenditure for 1930–31 is 1s. 3d.: its product of a penny rate per unit of average attendance is 103d., as compared with 20d. in Glamorgan; and the net cost per child based on average attendance is £12 17s. 8d.

Miss WARD: The hon. Member referred to the secretary for the distressed areas. Whom did he mean? Would he mind giving us his authority for those figures?

Mr. WILLIAMS: The figures have been supplied to me by Mr. B. J. Jones, clerk of the Rhondda Urban District Council, who is the secretary for the South Wales and Monmouthshire Necessitous Areas Committee, and these figures are, I think, drawn from the journal that has been referred to by the hon. Member opposite, the "County Councils Association Gazette." I think I have seen them there. However, without stressing this subject any further, I hope that the aspect of the problem that has been placed before the Minister in the figures which I have quoted, in substantiation of the statements that were made by the hon. Member for East Newcastle, will be considered by him. I sincerely trust that his Department will appreciate that that is the only means by which we are able to bring substantial alleviation to the distressed areas.
Really, we do not know what will happen in South Wales during the coming winter. On Saturday next the school managers for a very large area, known as the Bridgend area, which takes in quite a number of urban authorities, have decided to hold a flag day to found a fund with which, to purchase boots for children. We are obtaining the co-operation of all the churches and of public-spirited people. We have to stoop in these days to do things like that in order to help these children. We have already taken a census of the number of children who require boots in that area, but at the moment, because the weather is fine, we are not proposing, when the fund is established, to purchase the boots directly. We look upon the problem in the winter time as being so grave that we intend suspending any expenditure in
that direction until winter comes along. That really is the serious side of this problem, and I am sure that the Minister, the Department, and all hon. Members, in their heart of hearts, will desire to do something to help the down-trodden people in these necessitous areas.

Sir JOHN SANDEMAN ALLEN: After the very full and able way in which the case has been brought before this House, especially by the hon. Member for East Newcastle (Sir R. Aske), I do not propose to take more than two or three minutes of the time of the House, but I would like to point out that, while the able explanation given by the hon. Member for East Newcastle no doubt covers certain parts of the country, it by no means deals with others, and the fact is that there are very different causes in other parts of the country 3.0 p.m. which have produced similar results. It may surprise the House that any hon. Member from Liverpool should speak as representing a distressed area. It is quite true that two years ago we were not in that category, and that the type of distressed areas of which Liverpool is to-day an example is not the same as those smaller places which are practically at the moment deprived of any possible hope of development. At the same time, Liverpool has to-day the greatest number of unemployed in the country, though proportionately perhaps we are about fourth or fifth, but it is a striking fact that a place like Liverpool should be in that condition.
The hon. Member for East Newcastle talked of a general increase of relief and a general tendency to lean more upon relief than there was before, largely no doubt due to the development of social assistance in certain quarters and the fact that other quarters that have not received it feeling that they are entitled to claim more than they did before. Generally speaking, the tendency has been to lean more on the State. That is quite true, but, as far as we are concerned, the figures of our rapid progress are recent. The accumulated amount, in the last 18 months or two years, of unemployment relief of able-bodied people in. Liverpool is about £500,000, but what we are more afraid of is what is so rapidly looming ahead for the future. Take the question of transitional payment. We have 60,000 odd on that list
to-day, and if the industrial conditions have not amended, it is possible, judging by the way things are going, that some 40,000 or 50,000 of those people will be off the list before long. That means that Liverpool will then have an addition of from £1,000,000 to £2,000,000 a year to pay.
These things are very serious, and things are drifting on. I know that the Minister is very alive to the position, and the important thing for us is to bring it to his notice. There has been a lot of talk about remedies. One remedy suggested is nationalisation of the whole situation, but that would be very unfair. It would mean a distribution of the burden which would not be fair. Then there is the proposal for equalisation, but I cannot help feeling that those who are wanting relief would strongly support equalisation and that those who had to pay for it would be disposed to oppose it. Such is human nature, and it is a very difficult question as to how far it is right and how far it is wrong. These are matters for the Government to study with the closest care, and all the points that have been brought up to-day emphasise the fact that the matter calls for further and immediate attention by the Government.
We can only call attention to it in Parliament, but we know that we have the sympathy of the Minister, and that we can count on him to act promptly in the matter and to take it into the most serious consideration from a broad, national point of view. Much wants to be argued and explained, but it is too late to-day to do it, and I am sure that the Minister is well seized of the situation. I want strongly to support what was so well said by the hon. Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward). Many of these points call for consideration. After all that has been said, little more is needed than to hear from the Minister something which will enable us to go back to our constituencies with some peace of mind. These areas are suffering bitterly; families are in great anxieties, and they are looking to this House for something to help them.

Mr. McKEAG: I desire to reinforce what has already been said by other speakers as to the necessity of special attention being given to the depressed areas. I represent a division of Durham,
one of the most depressed areas in the whole of the United Kingdom. The position there, as I have endeavoured to emphasise on a number of occasions in this House, is really tragic. One cannot pick up a newspaper without reading the gloomy tidings of another colliery closing down, of another bankruptcy, of another liquidation, and of another factory going on short time. The dismal process is being repeated until the people are beginning to be hopelessly resigned to the fate which surely awaits them unless the Government take immediate and resolute action. Already in the county of Durham there is pauperisation on a wholesale scale. It is really heartrending to see men, honest decent men, whom one has known all one's life, unemployed for almost a decade and being reduced to the depths of degradation and despair.
I have no desire to dwell on the harrowing picture which is presented by the north-east, but sometimes I doubt if the House as a whole fully appreciates the reality of the terrible plight in the depressed industrial areas. There is one vitally important consideration which is frequently lost sight of. It is that owing to prolonged unemployment there are vast numbers of young men who have never worked in their lives. That is important, because there is in consequence no recruitment of those skilled workers whose craftsmanship has won fame and renown for British manufacturers, and upon whose skill much of our former industrial prosperity was built up. It is a problem which demands immediate attention. It will not wait until it has been aggravated by the ravages of the coming winter, and unless the Government act they will reap what has been sown and the, harvest will be really tragic and ghastly. The need is great, the cry is urgent, and I join in the call on the Government to pay heed.

Mr. STOREY: The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), speaking in the House yesterday, told the Government that a policy of "wait and see" in the present great crisis was a most dangerous one. If it is a dangerous one for the country, it is a ranch more dangerous one for the depressed areas in the North and in Wales. I do not think that many people in the South realise the grim fight that the North and parts of Wales are making, the dour struggle to keep their heads
above water until something happens which will bring back better times. It is not the fault of the depressed areas that they are in their present state. My constituency of Sunderland is typical of many others. In the past Sunderland built more ships than any other town in the whole world; engineering of many types flourished there; it had subsidiary industries, including glass making, paper making, pottery and rope making. Now there is not a ship being built on the river, and many of the shipyards will never open again; engineering is languishing; and many of the subsidiary industries have disappeared, sacrificed on the altar of a suicidal fiscal policy.
If it is not the fault of the depressed areas I cannot see why they should bear the whole brunt of the trouble which has come to them. It does not seem fair for those who live in the pleasanter parts of this country not to help the distressed areas to bear their burden. It is not economical, either. If we want to revive industry, surely we ought to revive industry where industry already is, surely we should revive industry where the factories are and where an industrial population is already settled. If we do not, we must face up to the fact that we shall have to undertake a big policy of industrial transference, which will means vast new capital expenditure and a waste of the great capital expenditure already incurred.
One step which we cars take is to equalise the burdens of the depressed areas over the whole country. I see that a conference called by the Ministry of Health has been considering the bringing about of uniformity in administration in the North of England. Their proposals, I am told, will cost about £11,000 in Newcastle, about £6,000 in Gateshead and about £5,000 in Sunderland. Surely it would be better to spend more time in equalising the burden that has to be borne than in seeking uniformity of administration. The right hon. Gentleman will probably tell me that that would make it more difficult to establish industry and agriculture in other parts, but surely a policy which makes it easier to provide industry and agriculture by, shall we say, the manufacture of silk purses out of sows' ears at Sevenoaks, is not one to be considered when it is a case of building up the staple industries of this country. We should do everything we can, some-
thing immediate and definite, to assist the staple industries in the North and in other distressed parts of the country. The North has been basing its hopes, up to the present, upon science to find a new outlet for its coal, and upon fiscal policy to enable it to sell more coal to manufacturing concerns in this country, or upon finding new markets abroad for its coal. It is looking also to drastic national economy to lower the burden of the rates and taxes upon industry. It asks that the country as a whole should bear the burden of the present distress, and should not leave it to be borne alone by the part of the country which is feeling the brunt.

Mr. LOGAN: I want to bring certain matters to the notice of the Minister of Labour in regard, in the first place, to the city of Liverpool, from which I come. There is no need for me to tell the tragic story of dockside and of how shipping is in a very deplorable condition, nor do I wish to go over all the points that have been raised by other hon. Members who come from depressed areas. I do not wish to add to the responsibility of the Minister in dealing with what must be a most difficult problem. I want to emphasise the view that was expressed at the meeting that was presided over by the hon. Member for North Newcastle-on-Tyne (Sir N. Grattan-Doyle), and which considered this problem. I think the House is truly grateful to him for having brought it forward. This matter touches every section of the community. It is passing strange that this problem is mostly met with in areas that were hives of industry and that are to-day most depressed, and that during the period of depression greater burdens are to be borne by them. That is inequitable. We feel that all those places that had the benefit of the operations of the areas to which I have referred should, when the time of depression comes, help them to bear the burdens. Some adjustment is absolutely necessary. I am not going to deal with the anomalies, or with any Act that has been passed, but in those areas of which I am speaking, Liverpool particularly, we never anticipated that we should have to deal with cases of transitional payment.
I do not think that it is outside the ambit of the Minister to give some preferential treatment to the distressed areas. I dare say that legislation would
be required, and that would mean delay. There are three points that might be dealt with. There is, first, the burden of unemployment. I am convinced that we all agree that that should be borne nationally. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That is a point upon which there might be a difference of opinion, but I do not want to spend time on that. The second point is the equalisation of rates. Thirdly, suppose that we say the other two are trivial points, there is the possibility of an agreement being arrived at that the depressed areas are suffering from no cause of their own, and that they ought to have a special State grant. It is quite possible, and, if they had a special State grant given to them on the merits of the case, the Minister would be able to deal with it, and satisfaction would certainly be given to those areas. Taking all the facts into consideration, this is a very important matter. The rates will continue to increase, shopkeepers will have more rates to pay, and the poor will not be able to bear the increased burden in connection with the rents of their houses. Therefore, these conditions will bear very harshly upon us. I would ask the Minister, in view of what has been stated to-day and of the representations which were made a few days ago, whether he will not consider this to be a matter in which he can give us some satisfaction and make some adjustment?

Mr. GURNEY BRAITHWAITE: The House is indebted to the hon. Baronet who raised this matter on the eve of our adjournment for a Recess of a considerable period, if only for the reason that there is no section of the country which has a greater claim upon this National Government than that section which is represented by these depressed areas. Comment has been made over and over again by right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench on the fact that the greatest fortitude and courage in accepting cuts and facing up to the national situation was shown in those areas at the time of the recent election, and the most striking victories of the National Government was secured in those areas.
I want to say quite frankly, in this important Debate, that those of us who were returned by these suffering people in the distressed areas were not returned here to act as party men. If we were
given one mandate more than another, it was this: "When you get to Westminster, pool your brains; if necessary, forget all your own shibboleths and doctrines; adopt any remedy you like to get us through our difficulties and towards better times." We are endeavouring to carry out that mandate, and, if even there was an opportunity of carrying it out, it is in connection with the action to be taken here and now to relieve the burden of these depressed areas. The official Opposition have advocated for years that the able-bodied unemployed should become a national charge. If I remember rightly, that has been a part of their doctrine ever since the War, and it would appear that they have obtained certain recruits during the present slump. If I understood correctly the speech of the hon. Member for East Newcastle (Sir B. Aske), he at least supported that point of view.

Sir R. ASKE: I was advocating it 30 years ago.

Mr. BRAITHWAITE: Then the hon. Member is not a recruit; it is possible that he has been advocating it even longer than certain hon. Members opposite; but at least a number of recruits have been obtained in the present slump to that point of view. I want to say at once quite frankly that I think that it is a complete fallacy, a mistaken point of view, and one into which we must not be led simply because times are bad. A question was put only to-day by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks)—I am sorry that he is not in his place at the moment—the burden of which was a complaint that the relief committee at Hucknall, I think it was, had suffered super-cession by the Nottinghamshire County Council, people not in touch with local circumstances, who might act harshly towards those who have to be dealt with in these difficult times. I sympathise with the hon. Member's question; I believe that to be a perfectly sound argument; but, if that be true of relief administered by a county council, how much more so is the administration of this matter likely to be carried out in a harsh and soulless manner if administered from Whitehall?
There is difference of opinion in this House as to the soundness, the justice, and, indeed, the necessity of what we call the means test. It has been raised already on the Motion for the Adjourn-
ment to-day. But, whatever the merits or demerits of the means test may be, I think that hon. Members of this House would be inclined to agree with this general statement, that, taking the United Kingdom all over, the Public Assistance Committees administering the means test have carried out a task of the greatest possible difficulty with the greatest possible humanity. I believe the public assistance committees have carried out a difficult task with the greatest possible humanity and in a manner for which they have earned the gratitude of this House and, indeed, of those who have had to come before them. It 'would be a great mistake to transfer that particular work from localities where the people who deal with it know in most cases the circumstances of those who come before them to be administered in a harsh, bureaucratic and soulless manner by some Ministry in Whitehall.
There has been another suggestion, that the time has come for equalisation. I noticed that that suggestion met with the greatest support from the Socialist benches, and one is not surprised. Once establish that thesis that equalisation is desirable, and every Socialist local authority in the country will immediately take the bit between its teeth and gallop away, relying on being relieved from the consequences of its own folly by local authorities who have carried out their administration in a sane, sober and economical manner. I do not think equalisation can be regarded as the best way to escape from our difficulties. I think the most practical suggestion that has come before us in this Debate, and one which, I have no doubt, will be carefully weighed by my right hon. Friend, is that the Local Government Act, 1929, gives us the machinery that we want to deal with this matter, at any rate for the time being. Before I had the opportunity of listening to Debates from these benches I used frequently to listen from the Strangers Gallery, and I followed with great interest the passage of that complicated Measure, with its 115 Clauses and I do not know how many Schedules. One of the most discussed parts of the Measure was the algebraic formula, far beyond me, explained lucidly by the then Minister of Health, a formula to which immense thought went, and which has been of the greatest assistance to the depressed areas in helping them through the
difficult times. It was a formula worked out to deal with unemployment in the vicinity of a million persons, before the full weight of the present unemployment figures fell upon the country. This is not a matter that we can dismiss by the repetition of what is now becoming a rather threadbare formula, those two words "world causes," as if they explained everything. This is surely a domestic hatter which this Government and this House of Commons has to face up to at once.
The hon. Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward) said very truly that we believe the policy of the National Government will lead to a revival of trade, but we are passing through an exceedingly difficult time for the people of this country at an extremely difficult time for the supporters of the Government. We are now passing through that time lag, which the advocates of tariffs have always recognised was inevitable, between the imposition of duties and the working off of surplus stocks already in the country owing to intensified dumping and forestalling. It will be some months before such a thing as the 33⅓ per cent. duty on manufactured steel begins to show its effect in terms of employment, and it is that time lag that we ask the Government to assist us in tiding over.
3.30 p.m.
I am hopeful that there is already on the stocks at the Ministry of Health one very great contribution towards this problem. I hope it is a matter that we shall be dealing with very early next Session. I refer to a sweeping and progressive Measure to deal with the question of rents. We all know—I need not go into details—how under the Rent Restrictions Act 40 per cent. increase over pre-War rental can be charged, and the cost of repairs has fallen very much below 40 per cent. over pre-War. The time has come for the question to be faced courageously, because there is no rent legislation which has ever been introduced or ever will be introduced which does not inflict hardship in some quarters. It is a case of the greatest good of the greatest number, and there has to be introduced and urged a sweeping and drastic Measure for a reduction in working class rents.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is dealing with a subject which would require legislation.

Mr. BRAITHWAITE: I apologise. I was endeavouring to link the argument with the principle of help for the depressed areas, but I will not refer to it again. Whatever is done, whether it be under the Local Government Act formula—the 1929 Act—or from whatever quarter relief may come—this Debate will have missed its main object if we do not make some attempt to relate cause and effect. It is true that we are discussing remedial measures for certain depressed areas, but we shall err if we do not point out from this House just where those depressed areas are situated, and the one great cause of their depression. If you look at the map of the United Kingdom you will find for the most part that the areas for which we—new Members most of us—are speaking to-day are those areas in which the Socialists have control of local government, and have been allowed to have their way. We have heard frequently questions from hon. Members opposite asking what new factories are going to such areas as South Wales and Durham. Can they wonder that new factories do not come to areas in which the rates have been piled up to such an extent that no one outside a lunatic asylum would endeavour to start an industrial enterprise? I hope that if this Debate has served no other purpose, it will have served the purpose of pointing out to the country the necessity of restoring to local authorities a form of local government which will realise that the prosperity of an area is closely related to local administration and economy in local government.

Mr. LECKIE: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Braithwaite) introduced a jarring note at the conclusion of his remarks, for I am sure that the group which has been working on this question comprises Members of all parties, and is looking at the question entirely from a non-political point of view. I can only say, speaking for my own area, that the hon. Member is quite wrong as far as we are concerned. The Socialists have not got the upper hand in our municipal area, and therefore we do not come under his lash in any way. The hon. Member will agree that the depressed areas themselves are not responsible in any way for the collapse of the world trade, but at the same time they are being called upon to bear a burden which wealthy and more prosper-
ous areas escape. Until quite recently these areas have been the workshops not only of Great Britain but of the world, and now that foreign trade has, I hope only temporarily, collapsed, I feel that these depressed areas have a great claim in the direction of some equalisation of the burden of Poor Law relief, more especially when caused by unemployment all over the country.
Most of the hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon represent Northern areas, but I want to emphasise that the depressed areas are not confined to any one part of the country. The industrial Midlands in which I live, the East End of London and South Wales are equally in the same boat. Some appalling figures have been got out for me by the Town Clerk of Walsall on this question. They show that in England and Wales there are 113 towns with insured populations exceeding 5,000 where the unemployment is over 25 per cent. of the whole of the insured population. There are 17 Scottish burghs in the same position. The list ranges from Liverpool with 28.9 per cent to Tynemouth with 58.7 per cent. of unemployment among the insured population. There are nine counties with unemployment ranging from 37.7 in Northamptonshire to 39.6 in Durham. Therefore, a very wide area is included in the distressed areas on whose behalf we are speaking to-day.
The proposal that we have put before the Minister of Health is one that we think ought to be put into force as soon as possible. It seems to us the simplest method of helping these really distressed areas. I will only be a step, but it will certainly give some relief. I wonder if the Minister of Health realises the terrible struggle which the town councils in their depressed areas have had to carry on under the heavy load of Poor Law expenditure and the extra load caused by the reasons given by the hon. Member for Newcastle, East (Sir R. Aske). In many places they have almost reached the breaking point. The whole machinery of local government may break clown before very long, which would be a tragedy. I hope that we shall not be forced to the position which arose in 1926 when Poor Law guardians were compelled to borrow very large sums in order to carry on their work. It would be most unfortunate and a terrible situation if on account of the increased claims on
public assistance, anything of that kind happened.
The present burden is spread most unfairly. For instance, the poor rate in West Ham in 1931–32 amounted to 8s. 4¾d., while in Blackpool the poor rate was only 6½d. In the county of Durham the poor rate in the same year was 7s. 9d. and in the county of Surrey only 1s. 4¾d. The whole question of equalisation will have to be tackled without much delay. Nothing less than a complete redistribution of burdens will be satisfactory. In the circumstances I would beg the Minister to see whether he cannot give us some early relief on the lines suggested by our group. All sections of the House realise the vital importance of economy in these very depressed and critical times, but there is a false economy which is very popular in certain quarters—to cut down national expenditure at all costs. "At all costs" generally means putting it on to the municipality. It is a very short-sighted policy simply to transfer expenditure from the National Exchequer and to put it upon the municipalities, many of whom are struggling on with rates far too high. That is not only uneconomical but folly of the worst kind. There is general agreement, I think, on the question that some relief is absolutely necessary for the depressed areas. Some assurance from the Minister with regard to our proposals will be most welcome. We should like very much to take to our constituents a message of encouragement and hope in the great battle in which they are engaged.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young): We have been dealing in this Debate with a problem which is inveterate, anxious and of a growing anxiety. There are, perhaps, four regions of our land which claim the especially sympathetic attention of their fellow-countrymen and of their Government at the present time—South Wales, the North-East Coast, Lancashire and Merseyside and the South-West of Scotland. These are the regions which are feeling with exceptional severity the burden of the general had times afflicting the country as a whole. Since the inception of the had times, something has been done in order to change the situation. There has been the de-rating of factories, the effect of which is to prevent the increase of rates any longer
being a direct prevention of the establishment of fresh industries, and the acceptance of full liability on the part of the Exchequer for the transitional payments, which relieves those responsible for local finance from the burden of apprehension for the future.
I am anxious before coming to closer grips with the problem as presented to me, to put it into what may commend itself to the House as an absolutely fair light, and to get the factors into their due proportion. Let me say a word as to the anxiety and gravity of the situation to which I have referred. It is, in the minds of all of us, the slow accumulation of the adverse effects. Forces which can be borne for a short time become intolerable when they operate for a long time. I should like to say a word on the causes of the serious feature with which we are dealing. The feature itself is, of course, the growth of the expense of Poor Law relief owing to the increase of the numbers who require public assistance. The causes of this have been very carefully and accurately analysed in some of the speeches to which we have listened.
The hon. Member for Newcastle East (Sir R. Aske) was perfectly right in saying that the ultimate basic cause of this anxious situation is the prolonged continuation and growth of unemployment. With that there comes a gradual exhaustion of private resources, and not only that, but an exhaustion of all those auxiliary resources which are of so much importance in keeping people off public assistance. Trade union funds were mentioned; they become exhausted. In the line of defence behind them are all those resources of private benevolence of various sorts which gradually become exhausted, too. That is the true cause of the situation, the crisis as regards Poor Law relief with which we find ourselves confronted. The hon. Member for Newcastle East was perfectly right in saying, too, that recent changes as regards the organisation of unemployment insurance have little indeed to do with the matter. The proof of that is that the areas in which you find the increase of the cost of public assistance do not coincide with the areas in which the change regarding organisation of unemployment insurance has been most considerable.
Let me deal with another circumstance, to which it is my duty to refer in order
to reduce these matters to their right proportions. It is true that depressed areas deserve the sympathy of the country and the close attention of the Government, but it is not the case that the circumstances in which these areas find themselves to-day are unexampled. I mention this fact in order to give them encouragement. As a matter of fact, the conditions to-day, on a statistical basis, are not more grave than they have been in the past. Let me give one or two figures which may be of interest to the House. These are the total figures of expenditure on outdoor relief, which is the best test as to the gravity of the Poor Law situation, in various years. In 1922–23, a bad year, the total expenditure on outdoor relief by local authorities was £18,000,000. In 1925–26 it was £16,000,000, and in the present crisis, for the year 1931–32, the expenditure is only £12,000,000. Therefore, the circumstances are not really worse than they have been; they are not as bad as they have been in the past. Let me give one other figure which will indicate the order of the gravity of the situation. In the year of the great coal strike, 1926–27, the general stoppage year, outdoor relief cost £24,000,000. There was no general breakdown of the system of administration and organisation in that year, and this year the expenditure on outdoor relief is only half the sum expended during 1926.
I do not mention these figures in order to advance the argument that there is no situation which requires attention, because I am as convinced as every hon. Member that there is a situation which does require attention and the most careful watching, and also requires measures for dealing with it. There is another circumstance which I must mention if we are to get the situation in its right perspective. I have followed the arguments put forward in this Debate and I noticed with the greatest interest that what has been said has been from the point of view of students of our national conditions and not from the point of view of party politicians. That has been perfectly clear throughout the Debate. Hon. Members, with a strong common sense on this matter, have dismissed from their minds sensational or unsound remedies. They have dismissed the equalisation of rates and the nationalisation of the Poor Law services. At least, if they have not
completely dismissed them they have left them on one side. Some of these points have been well answered by the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Braithwaite) and, therefore, I will not deal with them myself at any length because, as I have said, they were not advanced, being outside the region of practical Debate.
What has been advanced is a proposal for the reconsideration of the unemployment factor in the determination of grants to depressed areas. The first circumstance I would mention is this. I want to make it clear what a very big effect the weight at present given to unemployment in the determination of public grants actually has. I want to make it clear that weight is given in our present formula to that feature of the conditions in the distressed areas which is particularly grave from their point of view, namely, unemployment, in determining the amount of assistance they are to receive from public grants. I want to make it clear that they have an advantage, derived from the present weight, in comparison with other areas.
I have one or two figures to show the relative advantage that the distressed areas, with their unemployment, get from the present weighting, compared with other areas. I shall give it in the form of the number of pence per head received by the inhabitants, by the local authorities, for the distressed areas in respect of their population, in comparison with the number of pence per head received by one or two undistressed areas in respect of the population. The figures refer to that part of the grant which is distributed on weighted population. Take the town referred to to-night—Gateshead. Gateshead gets 140 pence per head on the weighting factors, and Eastbourne only 40. The result of the weighting is to give Gateshead out of that portion of the grant which is distributable as weighted population three times per head as much as the undistressed area. Here are other figures: the county of Monmouth, 142 pence; Bournemouth, 40 pence; Durham, 138 pence; Merthyr Tydvil, 145 pence, and so on. Those figures are introduced by me to show that as a matter of fact there is a very substantial advantage afforded to distressed areas. Hon. Members' argument to-day has been on that basis, but they say that that is not enough. I know; that has
been made perfectly clear. The argument is not to deny that there is that advantage, but to say that that advantage is not enough.
There is another aspect of the question to which I desire to ask the close attention of the House and of those Members who are associated with distressed areas. Quite apart from any question of remedies, to which I shall refer later, let me say that the times are of admitted difficulty, and that the amount of public money available for essential purposes is admittedly inadequate. Under these conditions at the present time it is absolutely essential that everyone responsible for local administration should get full value out of every penny, shilling and pound of public money that is spent in public assistance. In order that we may find a solution of the difficulties of the distressed areas we must call upon the responsible local authorities to co-operate by a strenuous endeavour to eliminate everything in the way of lax administration. I do not make that call upon the co-operation of local authorities without good ground. There is ample evidence, particularly available to me, that there is administration which is lax and which calls for remedy, and to show the House that I do not speak without warrant I will give it concrete instances. A conference was recently held of the public assistance authorities of the north-eastern area. From that conference the county of Durham representatives withdrew because they would not agree to standards of public assistance in respect of out-door relief which all other members of that conference thought reasonable.
The standards which the other members of the conference thought reasonable, and which the representatives of Durham rejected, have since been criticised by others as too generous. I commend that instance to the attention of the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. McKeag) who spoke in this Debate and used expressions which seemed to me somewhat exaggerated. The second instance to which I would call attention is the instance of the county of Glamorgan where an impartial auditor has recently called attention to a serious amount of lax administration in respect of public assistance in particular. That matter is being brought to the attention of the county council. The third instance which I would give is that of a petition which has
recently reached me from ratepayers of Merthyr Tydvil alleging extravagance and bad administration in respect of public assistance and in respect of other services as well, on the part of the local authority and asking for an inquiry. In that instance there is certainly a prima facie case which would justify some inquiry being made.
We must deal with this problem at both ends and although meeting a situation in which not enough funds are available, we must be perfectly certain that the local authorities are making the best use of such funds as they have. In the first place particular attention is needed for the circumstance that scales of relief are sometimes not sufficiently brought into relation with the cost of living. That is a matter which requires urgent attention in order to prevent discrepancies. In the second place—and all practical administrators know that this is at the very root of all good administration of public assistance—the greatest of all sources of lax administration, is the automatic and mechanical administration of scales without inquiring into individual cases. What is necessary to secure good public assistance administration is the perfection of the machinery for inquiring into particular cases so that the scale shall only be used as a guide and not as an excuse to save the local authority the trouble of making inquiries which ought to be made.
It is my duty to show the situation all round before I deal with the specific remedies which have been suggested to-day. Now I come to the arguments which have been advanced in favour of the reconsideration of the weight given to the unemployment factor in calculating grants to local authorities. The practical remedy put before me, is a demand for the immediate undertaking of a statutory investigation under Section 110 of the Local Government Act of 1929. I hope I have not misunderstood the practical nature of the request made to me this afternoon. It is a demand for an immediate beginning of such a re-investigation. As the basis of the case for such a demand it is said that the weight which was originally given to unemployment in that formula no longer practically holds good, because of the great increase of unemployment and that there is now a prima facie case for reconsideration. In my opinion that prima, facie case is
established and a beginning ought to be I made with a re-investigation of that factor.
The situation can be put shortly in this way. The apprehensions of really serious difficulties in the depressed areas are so great that we must leave no stone unturned to make sure that we are doing the fair and square thing all round. For that reason this investigation ought not to be postponed, as was originally intended, to a future date, but we ought to go into the matter now. I know that that was not the original intention of Parliament. The original intention was to leave it to the end of the second grant period, but I think practical men recognise that circumstances have changed a great deal since 1929, and that reconsideration of the matter is now required.
4.0 p.m.
Let me now look at the present situation, because we must see what steps are now possible. For the fixed total grant for authorities for the second period of four years, legislation will be necessary before next April, but before that time we shall have to collect statistics in respect of population, of the numbers of children under five, rateable value, unemployment, road mileage, and of rate expenditure for the year ended 31st March, 1932. We have to collect these because they are all necessary for the revaluation of the familiar formula in the Act. What I propose is immediately to press ahead with the collection of those statistics, and let me make it clear to the House that we have to ascertain as a preliminary step what, under the existing formula, the grants for the second period would have worked out to be, because unless we ascertained exactly the basis for any readjustment, we should be making a complete leap in the dark, so we have to work out, £rst of all, what it would have been on the existing formula for the second grant period before we build upon that the investigation of what it ought to be in view of the changed circumstances.
There is one other circumstance to which I must call the special attention of the House as regards the preliminary steps which are necessary. This is a matter which does not only concern the distressed areas, because it concerns all the other areas as well. One has to make it clear that this is not a question of determining the allocation of fresh grants;
it is a question of determining the re-allocation of old grants, and that means that what "A" gains "B" must stand to lose. You must take everyone into consideration and give everyone a fair hearing, and indeed I am bound to do so under the Statute, because by the terms of Section 110 of the Local Government Act I must make investigations in consultation with such associations of local authorities as appear to me to be concerned, and with any local authority with whom consultation appears to me to be desirable.
Accordingly, before I can give effect to what is requisite, I must approach the associations of local authorities and authorities in London, and ascertain what their views are; and those associations of authorities, we must remind ourselves, have not asked for an investigation, and, of course, I cannot say that it may not be to them a matter of surprise. Nevertheless, my own view in the matter is that which I have stated, and that is that the investigation should be now commenced and proceeded with That appears to me to be the appropriate remedy for the anxious situation with which we are confronted, that we should proceed now with the investigation of the figures and approach the associations of local authorities as in the undertaking of the earlier investigations. That, it is my intention to do.
I must utter a further word of caution to the House, and that is that towards the end of this year we know, we cannot but know, it may be necessary for the Government and for this House to give reconsideration to the general aspects of national and local finance. I am quite unable to say at present what measures may then be proposed to the House, dealing with general questions of finance both in its local and national aspects. I am quite unable to say, for instance, that the total measure of grants which might otherwise have been foreseen will be available. It is impossible to foresee the future, and my course must be this, that any result which may be achieved in this reinvestigation must be subject to the necessity of co-ordinating it with any general conclusions as to our national and local finances which may be dictated by our circumstances later in the year. The investigation will now be begun and will be continued till it is concluded, but
when its conclusions are arrived at I cannot say what the general financial atmosphere may be at that time, and it will be necessary to relate the conclusions to whatever happens to be the overriding necessities of the financial position.

EUROPEAN RELATIONS (ANGLO-FRENCH DECLARATION).

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): Before the House proceeds to the next point, I ask leave to intervene for a few moments to announce an outcome of the Lausanne Conference—an outcome which is now taking shape and which, I think, will be received with general satisfaction. Those hon. Members who were good enough to listen to my speech last night, may perhaps remember that I concluded by saying that at Lausanne we tried to get the countries of Europe to look forward instead of behind and that we wanted to secure that the whole problem of Europe was dealt with in the spirit of candour and mutual assistance which had prevailed at Lausanne. We have been attempting in the last few days to formulate the expression of this new political spirit which was illustrated at Lausanne and which will be so valuable if it can be preserved in future.
Let me be quite clear that what we have in mind is no part of the Lausanne Agreement. It should not he in any way confused with it. It is not a supplementary agreement. Indeed, it is not a substantive agreement at all, but it is an invitation to adopt candid and open relations and discussions to which we hope all the leading European Powers will respond. The French and the British Governments have taken the lead in the matter, but, as will be seen from the announcement which I will now read, what we are endeavouring to promote is a European accord as to the manner in which future difficulties should be discussed. I will read the announcement:
In the declaration which forms part of the final Act of the Lausanne Conference the signatory Powers express the hope that the task there accomplished will be followed by fresh achievements. They affirm that further success will be more readily won if nations will rally to a new effort in the cause of peace, which can only be complete if it is applied both in the economic and political sphere. In the same document the signatory Powers declare their intention to make every effort to resolve the problems which exist at
the present moment or may arise subsequently in the spirit which has inspired the Lausanne Agreement.
In that spirit His Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom and the French Government decided themselves to give the lead in making an immediate and mutual contribution to that end on the following lines:
As the House will see there follow four paragraphs. The first, second and third carry out what I have described, and the fourth is a special matter.
1. In accordance with the spirit of the Covenant of the League of Nations they intend to exchange views with one another with complete candour concerning, and to keep each other mutually informed of, any questions coming to their notice similar in origin to that now so happily settled at Lausanne which may affect the European regime. It is their hope that other Governments will join them in adopting this procedure.'
Then the second paragraph is this:
They intend to work together and with other delegations at Geneva to find a solution of the disarmament question—
I ask the attention to these words:
which will be beneficial and equitable for all the Powers concerned.
The third paragraph is:
They will co-operate with each other and other interested Governments in the careful and practical preparation of the World Economic Conference.
The House will notice that in each of those three paragraphs the invitation is general. Fourthly, and lastly, there is a paragraph concerning France and ourselves.
Pending the negotiation at a later date of a new commercial treaty between their two countries they will avoid any action of the nature of discrimination by the one country against the interests of the other.
I just add this, and then I do not desire further to trespass on the time of the House, as there is still other business to do. This is, of course, in no sense and at no point, apart from the fourth paragraph, a special or exclusive declaration. I would like particularly to make that clear on the subject of Disarmament. I need only recall what I said about Disarmament last night in relation to President Hoover's proposals. We have already announced our own intention to co-operate with the United States in the work of Disarmament at Geneva, and, as I said on behalf of the Government last night, I am going back there now to help the working out of
the principles of the Hoover proposals. As regards inviting other European Powers, I have already to-day had the opportunity of seeing the representatives in this country of Germany, Italy and Belgium, and in each case I have handed them a copy of this announcement and have extended to their Governments an invitation to associate themselves with the declaration.
The final paragraph deals with our commercial relations with France, and the avoidance of discrimination pending the discussion of a commercial treaty between France and ourselves; but the other three paragraphs, as is made clear in each case by the language used, are a proposal to the other principal countries in Europe to declare their adhesion to the rule that we will endeavour to promote political appeasement in Europe by open and friendly discussion on all points of difference, by seeking a solution at the Disarmament Conference which shall be beneficial and equitable to all, and by co-operating in preparation for the all important World Economic Conference which is to take place in the autumn and in connection with which we hope to have the advantage also of American assistance.

Mr. LANSBURY: I do not intend to detain the House except to say, first, that I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me a copy of his statement, so that I might have some little time to consider it. The House will not expect me, and it would be quite wrong for me, to attempt to discuss it now, but I may be permitted to say that in so far as it is proposed to carry out further discussion on questions that are of vital importance to Europe and the world with complete openness and candour, we give the proposal our most whole-hearted support. There cannot be anybody in the world who would stand for anything other than that. As to the Disarmament Conference, I should like to say, when the right hon. Gentleman states that they intend to work together with the other delegations in order to find a solution of the Disarmament question which will be beneficial and equitable, that I think everybody must support, that too. If people try to find an equitable settlement, they will find the right one.
As to the World Economic Conference, I am certain that only by perfectly open,
frank and candid discussion of world economic problems by representatives of the world, can we hope to find any solution. I am very glad that the fourth paragraph is there, and I hope that, as a result of it, and of all the other efforts that the Government may be, making in this direction, the League of Nations may become a real league of nations within which, in future, every question will be brought to discussion and settlement, without the dread either of economic or of any other form of warfare.

INDIA.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: The House to-day has had a very remarkable experience, for an Adjournment Debate. We have occupied a good deal of our time in discussing, quite appropriately and properly, our domestic distresses. A group of our principal Ministers left these shores this morning to discuss one aspect of our Imperial problems, and we have just had a pronouncement from the Foreign Secretary concerning our foreign affairs. I am quite sure that the House will not grudge the remainder of its time for the discussion of our Indian problems. If we are not able to devote more time to the subject, I am sure that it will be of some consolation to the Indian people that this House adjourns for its holiday with the thought of India very present to its mind.
The circumstances in which we raise this subject justify our return to it as a final issue for consideration. During the past week-end a decision was taken in India by people whom we may regard as representative of moderate opinion. It was a decision of the utmost gravity, and I purpose in the course of my remarks to invite the Secretary of State for India, in view of this very grave decision, to indicate to the House what the next line of action of the Government is likely to be. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India made an important pronouncement a fortnight or three weeks ago. He will appreciate that on that occasion we were not able to discuss it with that regard for detail that would have been right, because of the very short notice at which he made it. We asked for time to examine it, and since then we have been able to exercise our leisure hours in applying to the pronouncement more meticulous examination than was then possible.
In what light are we to judge that pronouncement? We have made it abundantly clear, ever since the beginning of this Parliament, and especially since the beginning of December, when the Prime Minister made a very important announcement at the Round Table Conference, that we would regard that statement by the Prime Minister, and the White Paper which embodied it, as the acid test of future action of the Government in relation to India. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me when I say that he, too, accepted that as a fair and proper standard whereby we might judge the work of the Government.
I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that there has taken place since then a very grave departure from the Round Table Conference method of discussing and settling this Indian problem. Briefly, there were four main stages, as the right hon. Gentleman adumbrated to the House. The first was that he proposed, in the course of the summer months, to announce the Government's proposals in relation to the settlement of the communal difficulty. I think I express the view of everyone when I say that it would have been infinitely more desirable if this difficulty could have been settled by the Indian people themselves, but the Government have decided to undertake the responsibility of issuing their own proposals in the absence of such an internal settlement, and I can only hope that the announcement which they make will be one which will heal the breach between these communal sections. In the official statement of the right hon. Gentleman, he made use of some significant words. He said:
On the assumption that the communal decision removes the obstacles which have been impeding progress, they trust that, as soon as their decisions have been announced, the Consultative Committee will reassemble and will proceed continuously with its programme of work.
The second stage, as I gathered, was the work of the Consultative Committee in India, but, if I understand it aright—and I would like to have this point cleared up—that is to be contingent upon the decision of the Government in regard to the communal difficulty removing the obstacles. If that is not the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman's words, I confess I do not quite see what their proper meaning would be, for he says that
on the assumption that the communal decision removes the obstacles,
the Consultative Committee will proceed to its examination of the problem in India. I want to bring home to the right hon. Gentleman the ground upon which some of us believe that the Round Table Conference method has been largely abandoned. He himself said, in the statement to which I have referred, that the Consultative Committee, when it embarks on its task,
will proceed continuously with its programme of work.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) then said:
In London?
and the right hon. Gentleman replied:
In India—bringing its collective advice to bear on the numerous and important questions entrusted to it many of which were not examined by the conference or its committees in London.
I beg the House to notice the significance of those words. There were important problems that were not even touched at the Round Table Conference, and yet the Consultative Committee in India as I understand it, is to discuss those problems, and, as far as I can see, there is no prospect of any Round Table Conference ever being convened to discuss them jointly again. Not only is it true that certain problems, many of them important and of exceptional difficulty, are to be relegated to the Consultative Committee in India, but there is a scarcely veiled hint that the financial safeguards are to be discussed later in London. To be discussed with whom? These are the right hon. Gentleman's exact words:
With a few individuals whose personal experience qualifies them to speak with authority upon them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1932; col. 1497, Vol. 267.]
I beg the House to observe what that means. I do not in any way challenge the wisdom of the right hon. Gentleman in discussing this problem with people who have experience of it, but the point to which I desire to draw the attention of the House is that these individuals will speak in their own private capacity, and not in a representative capacity; and the financial safeguards, after all, are a matter of fundamental importance from the point of view of the relations of the new India with Great Britain. When, therefore, a problem like this is relegated to discussion between the Consultative
Committee and a few individuals, however exalted, we clearly have departed very substantially from the Round Table Conference method of discussing these problems.
When the Consultative Committee feels able to make recommendations we come to the third step, namely, the Joint Committee of Lords and Commons. The right hon. Gentleman reserved to himself that there might be an occasion when more full and formal discussions might be necessary. The Joint Select Committee is to have power, apparently, to confer with representatives of Indian opinion. What Indian opinion? The Round Table Conference was a discussion with almost every section of Indian opinion. Is every phase of Indian opinion to be discussed? Is every organ of opinion or vehicle of expression to have opportunity of access to this Joint Select Committee? If it is not, there, again, is a substantial departure from the method followed at the Round Table Conference. In that matter, I would direct attention to an important passage in the right hon. Gentleman's own speech.
His Majesty's Government hope that by their present decision to recommend that this important task shall be performed before any Bill is introduced, they will facilitate Indian co-operation and ensure its effective influence in what is probably the most important stage in the shaping of the constitutional reforms and at a time before irrevocable decisions are taken by Parliament."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1932; col. 1498, Vol. 267.]
If Congress opinion and every other form of opinion is to have no opportunity of expressing itself on what is admitted to be a most important constitutional stage, clearly we have moved substantially from the position taken up in regard to the Round Table Conference method.
The fourth step was to be the presentation of a Bill. I was very glad that the right hon. Gentleman announced that there was to be only one Bill and not two. In regard to this matter, again I ask what do these words mean?
They intend that this Measure shall contain provisions enabling the Provincial constitutions to be introduced without necessarily awaiting the completion of all the steps required for the actual inauguration of federation.
Whatever the right hon. Gentleman meant by it, it is clear that those words are capable of this interpretation, that you are to go ahead with provincial
autonomy, leaving federation at the centre to wait for a more appropriate and convenient date. Whether my interpretation is right or wrong is a matter of comparative insignificance, perhaps, but the significant thing is this. Moderate opinion in India has interpreted this announcement as a departure from the Round Table Conference method. As a consequence, last Saturday and Sunday those who are regarded in this country as leaders of moderate opinion have declared that, because of what they regard as a departure from the well accepted method of the Round Table Conference, a method endorsed by this Parliament as late as the beginning of this year, they have decided to dissociate themselves entirely from co-operation for the future. The consequence clearly is that the right hon. Gentleman now finds himself almost entirely removed from any articulate political opinion in India. It is a grave situation, and one which, I am sure, the right hon. Gentleman must himself deeply deplore. I feel that this House ought not to disperse without hearing from the right hon. Gentleman himself his views 4.30 p.m. concerning this new situation which has arisen. It is an easy thing to say, "I told you so," but from the very beginning of this difficulty my hon. Friends and I have repeatedly warned the right hon. Gentleman of the growing alienation, not of extreme opinion, but of moderate opinion also, in India. We have been laughed at. We have been told that we know nothing at all about it, and now we have the facts staring us boldly in the face. The right hon. Gentleman cannot deny the statement which I have made, that on Saturday last important people for whose cooperation the Government have been extremely thankful in the past have now found it impossible to continue co-operation with the Government. It is a grave situation and one in which I cannot say that I in any sense rejoice. It is a situation which merits a public statement from the Government this afternoon before we depart for our respective places during the holidays. The right hon. Gentleman on the last occasion wound up his public declaration in these words:
By a procedure framed on these lines, His Majesty's Government hope to ensure both rapid progress towards the objective in view and the continuance of the co-operation between the British and Indian represen-
tatives on the one hand, and between the three British parties on the other, upon which so much of the success of the constitutional changes must inevitably depend."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1932; col. 1498, Vol. 267.]
The right hon. Gentleman cannot be under any misapprehension concerning our point of view. There has been, in point of fact, during this Parliament little desire expressed for our co-operation with the right hon. Gentleman, but in any case, whatever has been true of the past, I can tell the right hon. Gentleman here and now that we hold ourselves entirely free to determine what our line of conduct may be whenever any future proposals are put up to us, so long as the method upon which our co-operation was first given, and given freely and wholeheartedly, namely, the method of the Round Table Conference, is abandoned by the Government.

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): I am afraid that questions of procedure very often lead to misunderstanding even among ourselves and I hope that. I shall be able to show during the few minutes during which I shall be speaking to the House that there are misunderstandings between the Front Bench opposite and this bench here. If that is the case between colleagues in this House, it is obviously much easier to happen between Indians in India and British representatives here. If across this Floor there can be misunderstanding, how much easier is it to have misunderstanding over a distance of 6,000 miles, and I hope to show in the course of my remarks that a good deal of the trouble, in my view, is due to a series of misunderstandings.
Let us first face the actual facts of the situation. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) is quite correct in saying that certain distinguished Indian public men are gravely anxious as to the programme which I announced to the House 10 days ago. Three of them, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Mr. Jayakar, and Mr. Joshi have, resigned from the Consultative Committee. They and 10 others, who met in Bombay on Sunday, have sent to me arid the Prime Minister a protest against our programme of procedure. At the same time, the House should know that I have had other communications from India, also from very representative Indian public men, repre
senting more than one great interest in India, strongly approving of the procedure that I described 10 days ago. I say that this afternoon not in any way to underrate the disappointment that I feel owing to the action taken by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and his colleagues but to show that on this question there is a substantial body of opinion in India strongly behind the Government programme of procedure. I should be the last person to underrate the loss that we shall feel if Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and his colleagues are unable to cooperate with us in the later stages of the constitutional programme. I had the pleasure of serving with these gentlemen during last autumn and during the preceding autumn, and I can testify to the great value of their political experience, their ability, and their knowledge of constitutional questions, acknowledged by every member of the Round Table Conference. I should be very sorry therefore if the period of co-operation between them and us is brought to a termination. I should be particularly sorry if it was brought to an end as the result of misunderstandings that might be cleared up.
We have not had too easy a time either here or in India since last December. Those of us who were ready to proceed with the constitutional programme have had our steps compromised at every turn by the complications brought into the scene by the campaign of non co-operation launched by Congress at the end of the year. At every turn the renewal by Congress of the non co-operation campaign has made our way more difficult here and I am sure that it has made the way of the Indian Liberals much more difficult in India. I venture to say that this afternoon to show how very difficult the course of events has been both for them and for us during the last six months.
Let us look at the position as it is today. For years past we have had a series of inquiries of every kind into almost every important feature of Indian life. I have satisfied myself that this continuous series of inquiries, necessary as I admit it was, has none the less been one of the most disturbing factors in Indian political life. No one has known what was going to happen. The officials of the Indian Government have been left in uncertainty as to the ultimate policy
of His Majesty's Government. The Indian, whether he be a member of Congress, whether he be an Indian Liberal, whether he be a member of this or that community has never known from week to week or month to month what was going to happen, and that has had a most unfortunate effect not only upon the political situation but also upon the economic situation of India as a whole. Business men have been left in doubt as to the future. Everyone in this House will admit how disastrous, from a business point of view, is such a long period of long-drawn-out uncertainty. In view of this situation, I think admitted by every hon. Member in this House, I have received representation after representation from Indians to bring to an end this period of suspense. They have said to me by word of mouth, and in letter after letter, "Do let us now know where we are; do let the British Government produce its proposals and bring to an end this long-drawn-out period of uncertainty."
In view of these representations, it seemed to the Government that it was absolutely necessary to speed-up the procedure if we were to restore to India some measure of confidence in the future. Further, it seemed to us quite essential that we should speed-up the procedure if we were going to advance by one Bill rather than by two Bills. If we had adopted the alternative which many hon. Members on these benches would have desired, that we should have proceeded by two stages, have a provincial autonomy Bill first and a federal Bill subsequently, we might then have introduced our provincial autonomy and we might then have had a whole series of formal discussions going on about the centre, and there would therefore not have been anything like the same objection against a number of big formal and ceremonial meetings going on in London. But as I said to the House the other day, it was clear to me that it was the general desire of most politically-minded Indians that we should proceed by one Bill. Particularly was it the desire of those distinguished Indians who have now dissociated themselves from our programme. Particularly was it men like Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and Mr. Jayakar who were most insistent on this procedure by one Bill. It was quite impossible within any reasonable time to proceed by one Bill if once again we were going to have
these big meetings during the autumn and winter months. It was not that the Government had any ulterior motive. Nothing of the kind. It was simply that we came definitely to the view that if we were to proceed by one Bill we must speed-up the procedure on some such lines as I proposed 10 days ago.
Accordingly, we have attempted to adapt our procedure to the two overriding factors. There are two factors that over-ride all this constitutional development. The first is the factor I have just described of the necessity of speed, and secondly, there is a factor that in the ultimate resort it is Parliament that must take a final decision upon any Government proposals. That factor has been made clear from the beginning of the discussions of the Round Table Conference. It has been made clear from time to time by Lord Irwin when Viceroy, and subsequently in an interchange of correspondence between the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council, then Leader of the Opposition, and the Prime Minister. Somehow or other we have to adapt our procedure so that, on the one hand, we have speed and, on the other hand, we have the ultimate control of Parliament; and that by every means in our power we should maintain Indian co-operation.
Let me describe to the House how we are attempting to reconcile these somewhat divergent conditions; and in describing, the various steps we propose to take I shall he answering all the questions which have been put by the hon. Member for Caerphilly. Let me deal with a criticism not made by the hon. Member but by some of our friends in India—namely, that we have broken pledges which we gave in the White Paper. That is not the case in any way. The Prime Minister in his statement was very careful, and wisely so, to leave open the exact methods of future co-operation. He was wise for this reason, that nobody could foresee exactly what was going to happen in the months before us and, indeed, since December two very new factors have emerged on to the constitutional picture.
In the first place, in December we hoped that it would not be necessary for the Government to take a communal decision, but since the failure of the communities to agree amongst themselves we have had to undertake to make that deci-
sion, and let me repeat lest there should be any misunderstanding that we intend to make it during the course of this summer. Secondly, we hoped in December that we should still retain the co-operation of Mr. Gandhi and his colleagues. Unfortunately both these new features have developed in the picture, and it shows, if any proof were needed, how very wise the Prime Minister was to give his pledge in general rather than specific terms. In any case what matters in a pledge of that kind is the spirit in which it is carried out, and the spirit in which we hope to carry it out is genuinely a spirit of co-operation. I know that many prominent Indians regard me as a particularly reactionary tiresome Conservative Secretary of State, unsympathetic towards all their aspirations and hostile to all their programme. I am sorry if that is the picture which they have drawn of me and which I dare say is due to faults of my own; but I do not myself think it is a true one.
In any case, let me suggest to my Indian friends the kind of way in which we still hope to get their co-operation. First of all, we are most anxious to have their continued co-operation on the Consultative Committee. We intended when the Consultative Committee was formed at the beginning of the year that it should be a microcosm of the whole conference. We made it as representative as ever we could of the whole Round Table Conference. We gave an undertaking that the reports of the various committees which went out to India should be put before them. It was clear to us that if the Consultative Committee would help us with its co-operation over this very wide field, not only would it be giving us very valuable help, but it would be enabling us here very much to speed up the programme and to introduce a Constitution Bill at a much earlier date. I still hope that with Indian co-operation the Consultative Committee may greatly help us over the very wide field that is covered by its agenda. The hon. Member for Caerphilly asked me what was meant by the phrase that was used in connection with the meeting of the Consultative Committee. The phrase was that, on the assumption that the communal decision was given, the Consultative Committee would then meet. I am
not giving the exact words, but that is the substance. That phrase was inserted in our statement for this reason—

Mr. MORGAN JONES: Here is the document.

Sir S. HOARE: "Assuming the obstacles were removed." That meant that the Moslem delegates to the Consultative Committee refused to go on with the discussion until the communal question had been decided, and until they saw whether the Moslem claims had been met. It was, therefore, necessary to put in a phrase of that kind. It means nothing more than that. It means that, assuming that the obstacles which impeded consultation with the Moslem delegates are removed, the Consultative Committee will meet. I hope that the Consultative Committee will meet and that we shall have the co-operation of distinguished Indians. Next there were to be consultations with individual Indians during the summer and autumn months. The hon. Member for Caerphilly said that these Indians would not be of a representative character. I am afraid they will not be representative in character any more than the members of the Round Table Conference were representative in character.
We have been dealing all along with prominent individuals, and we will deal with prominent individuals again, and our reason for proposing that these discussions should take place with a few individuals is simply this: The hon. Member quoted the case of financial safeguards. It was that which made us suggest this procedure. Many Indians last year took the view that discussions of financial safeguards in the nature of things would take place much better informally and confidentially between individuals. As financial and commercial safeguards are mainly a question for traders and business men and financiers, it seemed to us that by this means we might be better able to bring individual Indians into direct touch with the people who in many cases really matter much more than politicians. There was no more than that in our minds.
Let me pass to the next stage, to the Joint Select Committee stage. Our procedure there is an unprecedented procedure. We were anxious to bring Indians into consultation and co-operation with the Joint Select Committee
before this House could take any final decision, and it is our firm intention to make that Indian co-operation and consultation as effective as ever we can during the stage of the Joint Select Committee. We believe that the Joint Select Committee will really be carrying on the spirit of the Round Table Conference; that it will be the spirit and the procedure of the Round Table Conference applied to the particular conditions of the time. Moreover, at the Joint Select Committee the Indians will have the great advantage, which they never would have had upon the Round Table Conference, of seeing the specific proposals of the Government. The specific proposals of the Government will be put before the representatives of this House and of another place, and will be put before the representatives of India, and discussion of that kind will be far more profitable than the necessarily indefinite discussions of a large body like the Round Table Conference where the Government is obviously not in a position to put its concrete proposals before the Conference, for the over-riding reason that the only place before which the Government can put specific proposals is Parliament itself.
I hope I have said enough to show that it is our most sincere desire at every stage that I have enumerated to retain Indian co-operation. I hope I have said enough to show that our only reason for changing the programme is our desire to speed up the procedure. I have heard no suggestion from any quarter as to any better means than those which the Government have suggested—the conditions being the need of speed, the need of co-operation between British and Indian representatives, and, lastly, the over-riding need that the ultimate court to which specific proposals must be referred is the High Court of Parliament. I should be glad to hear from British or Indian quarters any suggestions for fulfilling those conditions, and carrying out our programme more effectively, more expeditiously, and more sympathetically than the proposals which I made ten days ago.

Miss RATHBONE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman two questions. First, does he propose to fill the gaps left in the Consultative Committee by the resignation of those three prominent Indian Liberals by appointing any other repre-
sentatives of the same body of opinion—of moderate nationalist opinion? The second question is, Does he still mean to keep open the possibility foreshadowed in the last paragraph but one of his speech on 27th June?
It may be that the course of discussions in the Consultative Committee may prove that matters will not be ripe for the formulation of definite proposals for the consideration of a Joint Select Committee without further consultation of a more formal character."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1932; col. 1498, Vol. 267.]
He then went on to foreshadow the calling of a more formal committee in London. Does he still hold open that possibility?

Sir S. HOARE: The statement is exactly as I made it 10 days ago. As to the hon. Lady's first question, I cannot answer it to-day.

Sir PATRICK FORD: On a point of Order. I should like to enter a protest against the Rules of the House which, apparently, make it impossible for the discussion of Scottish affairs to take place on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one Minute before Five o'Clock until Thursday, 27th October, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.